The Twelve Steps of Economic Recovery

01 Mar 2010

The Priority of 2010

The Government has clearly stated what is going to be the focus of its next 12 months in Parliament. Bill English, Minister of Finance, commented online to the NZ Herald:

'I'm pleased New Zealand has come through a once-in-a-generation world crisis in better shape than most other countries. However, the crisis has left a hole in the Government's books that will take several years to rectify. In addition, it has left many New Zealanders out of work, which has a profound impact on them and their families. The challenge now is to get the economy growing again at a stronger rate that meets our jobs and income aspirations' (Monday 4 January, 2010, www.nzherald.co.nz).

The economy, or to be exact, economic growth, is the priority. No mysteries there.

The global economy has come through its nose dive and with emerging signs of a fragile 'growth', the despairing jabber of crisis management has ceased to get air time and the talk has shifted to that of 'recovery'. Prime Minister, John Key opened Parliament with a speech full of 'recovery' talk:

'2009 was not an easy year for many people. Some people lost their jobs, some their savings, and others their confidence. Yet things are undoubtedly looking up. The economy is picking up and new jobs will appear as businesses have the confidence to invest and expand. What makes New Zealand such a great country to live in still remains. The policies we intend to introduce this year will be a big part of the country's improvement this year, next year and into the future.' (Hon. John Key, Prime Minister, Statement of Position, 9 February 2010, cited at www.johnkey.co.nz).

The promise is economic improvement and recovery. Now, there is a mystifying thought.

Economic Recovery

Recovery … from what do we want to recover? And, more importantly, toward what and for who is this recovery? Are we trying to recover real jobs for the 160,000+ people without employment, or is this simply a recovery of consumption levels, credit ratings and investment confidence? Will this be a recovery that returns our country to where we were before the financial crises, or will it reset our nation toward something new? Brian McLaren, a leading figure in the emerging church movement, captures the double-edged dilemma and possibility of this 'recovery' talk:

'For many people, economic recovery means "getting back to where we were a few months or years ago". That means recovering our consumptive, greedy, unrestrained, undisciplined, irresponsible, and ecologically and socially unsustainable way of life. I'd like to suggest another kind of recovery ... drawing from the world of addiction. When an addict gets into recovery, he doesn’t want to go back and recover the "high" he had before, or even to recover the conditions he had before he began using drugs and alcohol. He realises that his addiction to drugs was a symptom of other deeper issues and diseases in his life ... So ... maybe we can sabotage our addictive tendencies (toward carbon, weapons, fear, stuff , profit and easy answers) by letting the word "recovery" have a meaning that wakes us up rather than drugs us into the comfortable, dreamy, half-awareness in which we have lived for too long.' (Brian McLaren, cited online at www.brianmclaren.net).

I'm intrigued … what if we were to employ the language and practices of the 'Twelve Step Programme of Alcoholics Anonymous' to reframe our economic recovery?

The Twelve Steps¹

Before we start, I'm going to ask you to slow down. Don't rush these steps; this is not a journey that can be negotiated with ease or hurry. Speed, flippancy and simple answers will only entrench the failings of the current economic imagination and inhibit our hopes of a moral and economic recovery.

1. We admit we’re powerless—that our lives have become unmanageable.

Does the 'free market' hold too much power? Is it time to debate publicly how we might limit the freedoms of the market? Should we legislatively limit the credit-debt financing industry, including the predatory practices of fringe moneylenders? Is the financial market now too privatised, too totalising, even god-like? Should the market be allowed to determine the value of everyone and everything?

Should there be a commodification of and price tag on education, health, faith, public goods and relationships? Should we give up on the irresponsible politicking and wishful thinking of tax-cuts in the top personal income bracket and trickledown economics? Does the market only exist to serve the wishes of the fittest, smartest and wealthiest, or is it possible to regulate and redirect the market toward serving the common good? Is it possible to make the market serve the great ideas of equality, social justice, neighbourliness and reciprocity? Shouldn't the market be our shared servant? Is it time to publicly condemn the current direction of the market as unsustainable and the root of our own unmanageability? What is the alternative?

2. Come to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity.

The 'free market' is not god; only God is God and what we learn from our faith in God is critical to the hope of our recovery. Jim Wallis says it like this: 'Our moral system, our beliefs about what is right and good, must always come before our economic system. Our moral system must provide the foundation for and encompass our economic system …' (Jim Wallis, 2010, Rediscovery of Values).

Is the Church too complicit and compromised with or too distant from the economy to offer any real alternative? Is it possible to couple our efforts at economic recovery with a recovery of what is good and right, with a reprioritisation of shared morals and values? What would our communities (and personal lives) look like if we were to reprioritise and switch from excess to enough? What if we were to fund a new moral economy and a new sense of material sanity and spiritual wellbeing from within these values?

3. Make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him.

I’m praying. Will you pray with me?

4. Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

I have to drill this down and make it personal. Am I in danger of losing sight of what is enough? Has a fear of not having enough and a desire for having more than enough driven my own anxious and debt-fueled overconsumption? Am I image-focused and status-driven? Do I listen more to how the market determines the value of people and things than the views of my faith tradition? Do I suffer from haste and hurry? What is the connection between my everyday consumption and global poverty? How much do I waste?

Has our country lost sight of what is enough? Is it still possible to distinguish between need and want?

5. Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

I’m truly sorry; forgive me for living anxiously; forgive me for demanding and inflating my own sense of entitlement.

6. Be entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

I am. Are you?

7. Humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings.

I have. Will you?

8. Make a list of all persons we have harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all.

I have to confess I had to pause at this step. If my everyday involvement in a divided economy entrenches 'harm' and injustice, how should I start to make amends? Should I try and 'give back' what I think my complicity has unjustly earned me?

The dilemma is echoed by Tom Sine: 'Those who follow Christ are called by Scripture to unequivocally follow the doctrine of active distribution; that is, we are called to actively redistribute all of our time, talents, and resources to seek first His kingdom in our (neighbourhoods) ... The question is not whether, it's how: how can we most fully invest all of our lives and resources to manifest God’s new age of justice in a world of growing need and tragic inequity?' (Tom Sine, 1981, The Mustard Seed Conspiracy, emphasis mine). What does it mean to fully invest all of our lives in the making of social justice? Is that how we embody our faith? Is that how we make the invisible God seeable, touchable? Does it mean that everyone simply does what they can for and with others, that we individually and collectively embrace responsibility? How can we address the poverty of our relationships?

9. Make direct amends wherever possible, except when to do so would injure others.

I’m still trying to think through what it means to make amends in a global and local community divided by inequalities. Ronald J. Snider makes this scandalous claim: 'Contemporary Christians have an enormous opportunity to use politics to shape a better world. A few basic facts underline this truth. More than a third of the world's people claim to be Christians. That one-third of the global population controls two-thirds of the world’s wealth. If even a quarter of the world's Christians truly followed biblical norms in their politics, we would fundamentally change history' (Ronald J. Snider, 2008, The Scandal of Evangelical Politics). What could this mean? Should we flex something of our political muscle? How can we influence the financial advisors and policy makers of the government to reset our economy to be more favourable to the poor? What kind of world do I vote for with my spending? Should we add to our language of personal sin, a vocabulary of social and structural sin? Should we stop imagining tax as some kind of dreaded penalty and start seeing the tax we pay as a practice of our neighbourliness? What is the honest intent of the proposed increase to GST? Who will it impact on the most? What if we committed ourselves to improving our biblical literacy? What difference would that make to how we see ourselves, our needs, our money, others and the world? Would we see a God who is biased to the poor? The question lingers: how can we right our own neglect of the vulnerable?

10. Continue to take personal inventory and when we're wrong promptly admit it.

The economic and moral recovery of these steps is counter to everything we think we know. There is no fast fix or simple answers. There is only the hard slog of community development and the slow and step-by-step establishment of the Kingdom of God.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understand Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

I will. Will you help me?

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we try to leave these messages (and questions) for other generations, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

The sea change of recovery that our country needs will only come from defiant, hopeful communities who deliberately decide to interact differently with the current economic expectations that govern the look and feel of our neighbourhoods. The economic direction of our future will only change when people like you and me intentionally play by a different set of economic rules. What legacy will we leave for future generations?

Working our Recovery

Working these Steps 'can be a tool to relieve suffering, fill our emptiness and help extend God's presence in our communities. The Steps release energy, love and a new imagination of what is possible. It is a programme we follow at our own pace. We walk this journey of recovery one step at a time, with God's help and with the support of others in the programme. All we need is to stay open and teachable. Much of the work is done by God's Spirit working through us. If we work these Steps faithfully, we notice improvements in ourselves: our awareness, our sensitivity, our ability to love and be free. Our spiritual, emotional and economic recovery will surprise us' (paraphrased from The Twelve Steps—A Spiritual Journey, 1991, RPI Publishing).

By Malcolm Irwin (from SPPU)

¹ Adapted from The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. The questions have come from my engagement with Brian McLaren at www.brianmclaren.net; Jim Wallis, 2010, Rediscovering Values—A Moral Compass for the New Economy; Robert G. Simmons, 1995, Competing Gospels—Public Theology and Economic Theory; Tom Sine, 1981, The Mustard Seed Conspiracy; and Walter Brueggemann, 2007, Mandate to Difference—An Invitation to the Contemporary Church.

Beating Poverty

17 Feb 2010

In 1890, Salvation Army founder William Booth estimated that a submerged 10 per cent of English citizens could be lifted out of poverty if given the necessary tools and opportunities. Despite a century of economic and social reform and a way of life still the envy of much of the world, some New Zealand citizens are still ‘submerged’ below the poverty line and have become social casualties.

Every day The Salvation Army stands alongside New Zealanders at crisis points in their lives. With this privilege comes a responsibility to ensure that what we learn brings improvement and change so other individuals and families don’t follow the same routes of crisis.

In 2004, The Salvation Army analysed the effectiveness of its social services. We discovered that, despite best efforts, more people were falling into poverty. To simply continue providing services without assisting and encouraging New Zealand governments to develop and implement policies to permanently improve the social and economic climate of the nation did not seem sensible or socially just. And so, in March 2004, the New Zealand Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit was born. Fundamental to our work is the belief that people are the centre of God’s creation and that their spiritual, social and physical salvation provides the true and enduring basis of progress.

The unit has its genesis in William Booth’s awareness of the need for intelligent and creative thinking and sound social research. Booth developed his own social policy unit, which he called an ‘intelligence department’, saying: If we are to effectively deal with the forces of social evil, we must have ready at our fingers’ tips the accumulated experience and information of the whole world on this subject ...  in which the accumulated experiences of the human race will be massed, digested, and rendered available to the humblest toiler in the great work of social reform.

Recapturing the vision

The unit recaptures our founder’s vision of contributing purposefully to a nation’s social and economic debates to improve the lives of the needy and vulnerable. Our bold mission statement—‘to work towards a New Zealand in which there is no poverty’—leads us to engage in research, education and advocacy to improve New Zealand’s social climate and reduce material need. Our staff has expertise in disciplines of economics, social policy and theology, and utilise professional research and policy development methods to prepare research papers, policy documents, submissions and articles.

We provide influential New Zealanders with robust information on the circumstances of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens so they can make creative, intelligent decisions on which policies and practices work best for those in need. The Salvation Army cannot eradicate poverty alone. The unit therefore engages with national and local politicians, business, educators and our colleagues in churches and community organisations to build social and economic structures that offer the chance of equity and justice to all. A further aspect of our work is to help people understand how the Gospel speaks into contemporary issues of New Zealand society. This includes organising regular ‘Just Action’ conferences that approach social justice and social policy from a Christian perspective, and publishing a monthly e-newsletter as well as occasional papers.

The Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit has become an essential tool in the mission of the New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga Territory. Its voice has given The Salvation Army unprecedented influence on policy making and the social and economic direction of New Zealand. This is a voice that speaks of a God who cares for and demands justice for his people, particularly those whose circumstances put them most at risk.

By Major Campbell Roberts (from SPPU)

You Can Have Happily Ever After

16 Feb 2010

At this time of year it can seem like we’re surrounded by chocolate hearts and beautiful roses. Love is in the air.

We’ve all seen the movies where Prince and Princess Charming meet and fall in love. They have a few problems getting it together but over the course of the movie all obstacles are resolved.
A happy ending! Yet their relationship is really just beginning.

As the credits roll we assume couples will live happily ever after in wedded bliss. But unfortunately, long after the chocolate hearts are eaten and the roses sent to the compost bin, ‘happily every after’ for many real-life couples becomes a distant dream. Life’s pressures build and they drift apart.

Practical relationship tools

Peter and Lisa Holden, who attend The Salvation Army in Johnsonville, run ‘The Marriage Course’, an eight-week marriage enrichment course by Alpha International. They also advise other churches on how to run the course.

The Marriage Course is aimed at helping couples reach their happily ever after by building a healthy and lasting relationship. It gives them practical relationship tools and the time and space to discuss any difficult issues. The aim is to help couples break bad habits and create good ones that will sustain their marriage for a lifetime.

Peter and Lisa became involved in the course when they were living in England. ‘We had been married for about five years at the time and had a good marriage. Initially, I didn’t want to do it,’ says Lisa, ‘but a friend pressured us into it—and we really enjoyed it.

‘It seems small and quite obvious, but for me the most important and lasting thing that I learnt was that we needed to prioritise time for each other. So now we go on regular “date nights”; just the two of us. I’ve realised that this is how I feel loved within our marriage, and if I don’t get this time I can feel taken for granted and easily become moody and resentful.’

Lisa and Peter’s date night routine has become particularly important now that they have a two-year-old son. ‘We are both busy,’ Lisa continues. ‘There are always a million things to demand our time, but our most important commitment is to each other.’

Investing in marriage

When they joined The Salvation Army in Johnsonville the couple decided to run The Marriage Course themselves. They’ve had strong support from the church’s leadership, which sees the course as a great way to offer something helpful to the local congregation and an excellent way to meet a need in the surrounding community.

‘Along with an incredible team of helpers and volunteers, we’ve run two courses now and are starting our third this month,’ Peter says. ‘It has been so wonderful to see couples come from the church and community to invest in their marriages.’

Each evening of the course starts with a meal. Couples sit at candle-lit tables for two and enjoy a catered romantic dinner. The tables are placed far enough apart that privacy is maintained. Background music ensures that all conversations are just between partners.

The meal is followed by a talk (on DVD) by presenters Nicky and Sila Lee, who help couples discover how to understand each other’s needs, communicate more effectively, grow closer through resolving conflict and heal their relationship after having hurt each other. Couples also learn to recognise how their upbringing affects their relationship. They are encouraged to develop greater sexual intimacy and discover each other’s love language.

Throughout the course, couples have a chance to discuss the different ideas and issues that arise. Homework further extends the course’s impact.

All sorts of people come on The Marriage Course, says Lisa. ‘We know that there are couples who have great marriages; they are still in love and want to learn how to make their relationships even better. We also have couples whose relationships are in trouble; it’s great when they come up to us after the course and tell us that they have found real solutions to their difficulties and that they are committed to working on their marriage.

‘And there are couples on the course who have been married for a while and have stable marriages, but through the anonymous questionnaire at the end we learn that they had lost the spark or the intimacy in their marriage. Often we hear that through the routine of daily life, bad habits have developed. Perhaps conversation has become solely practical and about the children. Or the importance of tenderness has been forgotten.’

Because all the discussions couples have during the evening are private and because there is no group work, no one else has any idea which of the three categories, couples are in, she emphasises. ‘That makes coming to the course easy.’

It’s worked for us

It’s possible that Brian and Trudy Robb hold the record for the shortest time married before doing The Marriage Course.

Both had been married previously, with children from those marriages. When Salvation Army officer Captain Paul Gardner was discussing the couple’s marriage plans he was direct about the importance of doing The Marriage Course, telling them he’d already signed them up. ‘He told us, “You’ll be doing this course,” ’ Trudy recalls. ‘But we agreed. We wanted to start our marriage on a good footing.’

They were married on a Friday and were back for the first night of the course on the following Monday evening, just three days later.

Brian says attending the course so early in their married life has helped them set good patterns ‘right from the start’. Both of them knew the realities of marriage and found it helpful to talk about some of their past habits and how they could now avoid them.

‘The topics were relevant,’ Brian says, ‘and the way the tables were spaced and the background music meant everything felt really private.’ He found the teaching on love languages and the chance to discover what he and Trudy appreciated from each other very helpful.

Trudy says, ‘The Marriage Course made us take regular time out; it was the one night where we had to sit down opposite each other and talk. We knew each other but being on the course gave us the chance to talk openly and honestly—in neutral territory.’

Simon and Charmaine Roper attended The Marriage Course towards the end of 2009. They will soon celebrate four years of marriage and have a 15-month-old son. When the course was advertised Charmaine thought it sounded good and talked to Simon about going along. He didn’t take much convincing; his parents had done The Marriage Course at another church and thought it was great. Other friends had also enjoyed it.

A few months on, Simon says the practical advice on listening to his wife was the most useful thing he learned. ‘It made me realise that I could do better,’ he says. ‘Our talking, listening and communication is stronger now.’

Charmaine agrees. ‘I think [the course] lays a great foundation for understanding each other: how to talk to the other person so they understand where you’re coming from and how you feel.’

Running The Marriage Course always proves a great refresher for Lisa and Peter’s own marriage, they say. They’ve recommended it to all their friends.
 
‘We’ve had fun and it has been such a privilege to be able to serve others in this way,’ says Peter. ‘We’re not experts on marriage—and our marriage is by no means perfect—but we love helping others and love the fact that we can help make that fairy-tale ending a little more achievable’.

By Lisa Holden and Christina Tyson (from War Cry magazine)

Fairtrade Myths Busted

15 Feb 2010

Meeting needs and standing up for injustice is in the Army’s DNA. It’s who we are and what we have been called to do. So it was no surprise when, in 2006, leaders of The Salvation Army in New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga recognised the often unjust attitude of international trade towards suppliers in the developing world and endorsed the concept of ‘fair trade’, encouraging corps and centres to purchase and use Fairtrade-certified products.

Many of us have made the change and now use Fairtrade tea, coffee, sugar, chocolate, clothing and even sports balls. If you, your corps/centre, family or flat haven’t yet taken this step, the following fair trade myth-busters may inspire you to ‘disturb the present to change the future’.

Myth: Would Jesus buy Fairtrade?! Christians are called to make disciples; isn’t Fairtrade a distraction from our core mission?
Busted: Often the best way to demonstrate what it means to be a disciple of Jesus is in practical ways. Salvation Army founder William Booth said: ‘What is the use of preaching the Gospel to men whose whole attention is concentrated upon a mad, desperate struggle to keep themselves alive?’ Showing concern for the livelihood of workers in the developing world by ensuring fair wages makes our stated concern for their souls more believable.

Myth: Fairtrade quality is poor.
Busted: A quick search on the Fair Trade Association website brings up almost 300 different suppliers of Fairtrade coffee in New Zealand. So if you don’t like one café, try one of the other 299-or-so. And once you’ve sampled a block of Trade Aid Fairtrade chocolate you won’t ever want to go back—eating a naughty snack has never been so tasty and altruistic at the same time!  

Myth: Fairtrade is too expensive. It makes sense that if workers are treated fairly, prices paid to the farmers will be higher, and hence, the end product will be more expensive.
Busted: First of all, Fairtrade will often have fewer middlemen to pay. Secondly, many Fairtrade sellers reduce margins at the retail end of the market to ensure products remain affordable. At our corps we did the maths, and the difference between buying non-Fairtrade and Fairtrade products was very little.

Myth: Fairtrade is hard to get.
Busted: Most major supermarkets now stock Fairtrade tea, coffee and chocolate. Later this year Cadbury will begin manufacturing with Fairtrade chocolate. The first shipment of Fairtrade bananas has just landed in New Zealand. Office Max, the main stationery supplier to The Salvation Army, has a range of Fairtrade products. You can purchase reasonably priced t-shirts, jeans and a few other clothing items in New Zealand. Our corps orders direct from Trade Aid’s Christchurch Warehouse at wholesale prices. We place the order and it’s on our doorstep in a few days.

Myth: Fairtrade is not the answer; we need an open free market. 
Busted: While free market economics has its place, many of the countries that are demanding free access to offshore markets by reducing import tariffs are still providing billions of dollars of subsidies to their own farmers. These farmers create more produce and dump excess on the world market, which lowers commodity prices. Sadly, the farmers in developing countries miss out.

Myth: We did that and we’ve moved on to other things.
Busted: I’ll be blunt; while we move on, children work long days without receiving an education or health care or clean water to drink. This is not something where we tick the box and move on—it’s a week-in, week-out lifestyle choice.

By Darren Frazer (from War Cry magazine)

In the interests of full disclosure, the author of this article is not only a hardworking Salvation Army youth worker, he also runs Micah Clothing, selling Fairtrade t-shirts. If you have further questions or comments about this article, email Darren.

Training on Foreign Soil

14 Feb 2010

In it, not of it

The ‘in it, not of it’ principle says that despite the environment and society we live in, we can, with the help of the Holy Spirit, bring a slice of God’s heavenly Kingdom to earth through our thoughts, words and actions. Every Christian has the God-given potential within them to rise above their circumstances and bring light to an often dark world.

With the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics now upon us, this counter-cultural and non-circumstantial way of living is perhaps no better illustrated than in the analogous example of athletes from tropical nations competing in the Winter Games. Despite their lack of snow and ice at home, they rise above their circumstances and engage in utterly foreign pastimes.

The first to raise the flag for the tropics at the Winter Games was the Philippines in 1972 with two alpine skiers. Then Costa Rica came on the snow scene in 1980 with another alpine skier (who coincidentally competed at another three Games). And in 1988 the world of snow sports was set alight with the presence of many tropical nations, including: Fiji (which, many will be proud to discover, has its very own Alpine Skiing Association), Puerto Rico, Guatemala, and of course the Jamaican bobsled team—immortalised as heroes in the 1993 classic film Cool Runnings.

Since then several African nations have had lone athletes appearing on the ice and in these Games Ghana will make its Winter Olympics debut with Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong entering both the men’s slalom and the giant slalom. And yes, at the time of writing, the 2010 Jamaican bobsled team is on track to again make an appearance in the Vancouver Games.

Out of the norm

As you cheer on these unlikely contenders (as well as our own New Zealand Olympic team of 15) think about the dedication necessary for these athletes to even reach the Games: the training in 30-degree heat, the lack of appreciation at home for their sport, and the many hours and thousands of dollars spent travelling to suitable training grounds.

And as you contemplate their dedication, transfer that same example across to the dedication required to maintain and grow your own walk of faith in a world and society that is typically moving in the opposite direction.

Like the Winter Olympian from the tropics, your relationship with Christ is mostly counter-cultural and therefore will involve: partaking in activities that are out of the norm (e.g. keeping Sunday for rest, reading your Bible); standing out from the crowd (e.g. keeping to OJ or Coke at after work drinks); and regularly spending time and effort transporting yourself to your training ground—the feet of your Heavenly Father.

Happy training.

By Hayden Shearman (from War Cry magazine)

Listening for God

13 Feb 2010

I’m 25 years old. When I was about seven a Salvation Army bus started coming to Glen Eden where I lived to run Sunday school. My brothers and sister and I got involved with The Salvation Army through that.

My family attended a very traditional Nuiean Presbyterian church. Its culture was important to my parents but I had trouble understanding it. The Salvation Army opened up the Bible so I could go with it and understand who Jesus is. What I learned seemed more relevant to my everyday life. Mum was all for it because she saw it was nourishing us spiritually.

I started to get involved in the Army’s brass culture, playing baritone, then euphonium, and joining the National Development Youth Band. Music became an anchor for me. I’m not an extrovert, and music gave me a tool to express my feelings. I became a Salvation Army soldier in my late teens.

My girlfriend Sheree and I had been buddies for a long time. We finished school and she became pregnant. Although my church wasn’t judging me, I fell away from God for about a year.

During that time I felt empty. I was totally lost; there was no foundation in my life. I was thinking: ‘Is there a God? And if there is, why does he have so many restrictions? Why can’t people be happy without getting married?’ I knew God’s standards but thought it was too hard to follow them because my partner wasn’t a Christian.

I had lots of questions but I wasn’t actually listening for God. I was selfish and wanted God’s answers to fit what I wanted.

Bringing up a young family makes you more aware of needing God. Alyssa-Jane was born five years ago. Our second child, a boy named Trinity, was born a year later. Sheree started coming to The Salvation Army but didn’t feel that comfortable. Being new was hard.

When our twins, Ethan and Nathaniel, were born—almost three years ago—we had so much help from our church. That’s when Sheree saw Jesus, through what people were doing for her. We married when the twins were on the way.

Sheree became a Christian in 2008. I recommitted my life to Jesus the same year. I remember we were singing a song about God’s mercy. It was the first time I listened to God, opened my heart to him and said: ‘What have you got for me? I’m yours.’

Just after I qualified as a painter I told God, ‘My life’s in your hands, do what you will.’

Be careful what you ask for! A children’s worker position opened up at Glen Eden Salvation Army and our leaders approached me about it. So now I’m leading children into the same sort of journey I started when I first got on that Salvation Army bus.

I experience God’s love through those kids. What drives me is not just them knowing about God; it’s them having an intimate relationship with him.

I want those kids—and my own kids—to know it’s okay to ask questions; the only dumb question is a question NOT asked!

A Peculiar Tradition

11 Feb 2010

February 14 is a marketer’s dream, a single person’s nightmare, a florist’s pay day, and ultimately, when you stop and think about it, a peculiar tradition.

For what are we actually celebrating on Valentine’s Day? And what are we looking to discover? Sure, ‘romance’ is the obvious answer, but what exactly is romance?

A recent blog on stuff.co.nz asked its readers this same question. The responses (all 104 of them) made for some intriguing reading. There were a couple of the conventional descriptions of romance: giving flowers, surprises of chocolates or jewellery, love notes and poems, and mystery weekends away. Yet by far the overwhelming majority of responses appealed to the little things in life as being the most romantic.

These responses included:

• ‘Warming up my side of the bed on a cold winter’s night’
• ‘The smile that spreads across my partner’s face when I get home’
• ‘Making me laugh every day’
• ‘Cleaning out the shower drain’
• ‘A cup of tea first thing in the morning’

And the list went on.

The small, everyday acts

Although all agreed that displaying ‘X loves Y’ behind an aeroplane is certainly a romantic action, respondents declared that the real fire of romantic love is sparked and kept alive through the small, everyday acts of selfless affection—the same acts that are so very easy to overlook. And the reason they are easy to overlook is that they require a shift in our day-to-day mentality. They’re not just one-off events that are simply switched on and switched off; they require a life geared towards lovingly serving the other person.

Jesus hinted at this description of romance when talking of love in general: ‘Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends’ (John 15:13). And, as Jesus himself demonstrated, this laying down of your life could be in significant one-off events (for Jesus, this was dying on the cross) or, more often than not, in day-to-day expressions of one’s love for another (examples: Jesus washed feet, provided lunch and was always there to talk).

The three Valentines

Back to the peculiarity of Valentine’s Day; it’s an interesting fact that scholars have little idea who Saint Valentine was. They’ve pinned him down to three possibilities: all called Valentine, all martyred between 100 and 400 AD, and all found in the Catholic Church’s martyrology on February 14.

Little is known about these three Valentines—we don’t even know if they had wives—yet we do know they each died as Christian martyrs and therefore each epitomised this principle of love, that it’s about laying your life down for another (for them, it was for love of Jesus Christ).

So this Valentine’s Day let’s follow the three Valentines’ examples and love, not just according to the one-off, conventional methods of romance, but by laying down our lives, moment-by-moment for the ones we love—in the small things and the big. 

By Hayden Shearman (from War Cry magazine)

Equipping Children for Life

27 Jan 2010

A Salvation Army-run early childhood education centre (ECEC) in Britomart Street, Wellington, received a glowing ERO report at the close of 2009 because of its adherence to the centre’s philosophy and dedication to excellence in student learning. The centre is managed and supervised by Salvationist Amy Hutson.

Though the centre has always maintained a Christian basis for education, it was after The Salvation Army New Zeal conference in 2009, which emphasised ‘heaven invading earth’, that staff fully realised their potential to speak into the lives of children at their centre and the wider families. A visit to another Salvation Army ECEC, ‘Kidz Matter 2 Us’ in Waitakere, by Amy and teacher Amanda Pethybridge also provided inspiration.

‘New Zeal was certainly one catalyst,’ says Amy, ‘but our visit to Waitakere was another.

Integrating Christian faith and God for children

New Zeal helped us to know that God had a plan for what we were doing, but Waitakere was really insightful because we could instantly feel the presence of God in their centre. We could see simple ways to integrate Christian faith and God for our children. We were after a natural way to do that and we found some really easy but impacting things at Waitakere.’

Amanda has been a teacher at the centre for the past two years and is one of a number of Salvationists on staff. ‘Our passion is to empower children and their learning,’ she says. ‘But our main priority is sowing positive seeds into these children’s lives, to teach them about the Kingdom and about Jesus and to eventually see our families coming to church.’

Day-to-day learning incorporates Christian principles in children’s daily routines. This includes prayers before meals and nap time, Bible stories and the recent addition of the ‘Prayer Bear’. ‘The children sit around in a circle and pass the Prayer Bear around,’ Amanda explains. ‘When they hold the Prayer Bear they say a little prayer. These started out as simple prayers, being thankful for Mummy and Daddy, but they have really developed. Some of the kids are starting to pray for other children or if someone is sick. It’s really exciting.’

Recently the centre received funding to present each child with a Bible when they leave at age five, the same version used at the centre, increasing the chance of stories sticking with the children as they get older. The funding came from Wellington South Corps Band, which donated half of the proceeds of a pre-tour concert as well as some additional money raised during its trip.

Amy, Amanda and Mary McDonald, another teacher, made the strategic decision to become part of Wellington South Corps in 2009, where teacher Nicole Jellyman and centre cook Tina Tonge also belong. ‘The purpose was to form relationships with a local corps, so that we have a faith community for our centre’s parents to go to,’ says Amy.

When ERO reviewers arrived near the end of last year to conduct their review, they took into mind the centre’s Christian principles as well as its educational quality. They came away impressed. ‘It’s the most impressive ERO report we’ve ever had,’ said Amy. ‘They couldn’t fault us.’

The reviewers also requested to use some of the centre’s written learning material for their exemplar folders, something staff are very excited about. Amy and Amanda say the centre’s glowing report stems from a positive team environment, which has an emphasis on communication, working together and the ability to be flexible.

‘Our success is down to God’s timing and our listening to God,’ says Amy. ‘We thought it was a big task, but if you just open yourself and allow God to use you for his purposes then the possibilities are limitless.’

Salvation Army ECECs

The Salvation Army has seven ECEC centres throughout the North Island, each one providing specialised service to meet a particular community’s needs. Fay Clarke, ECEC national consultant, says the Christian perspective is a priority for each centre along with providing high quality education and care. ‘All our centres want the best for children; the focus is on the children and on bringing out the special qualities, strengths and skills each one has.

‘Three of our centres have introduced “Love letters” for the children, written by the parents,’ she says. ‘Parents are invited to write to their child, post it in the centre post box and have it read out to that child. The letter is then added to the child’s profile folder. This is often the first time a parent has written a letter to their child. Staff ensure that every child gets a letter. It is very moving for staff, children and parents to be involved in such positive affirmation for children.

ECEC work is an integral part of the Army’s mission, says Fay. ‘Our early childhood centres are part of the holistic ministry The Salvation Army provides to families, contributing to social and spiritual wellbeing by empowering people and equipping children for life.’

By Cara Wood (from War Cry magazine)

When the Running Stops

26 Jan 2010

Two People Meet on the Path to Christ

Dave, or Big Dave to his friends, despite his slightly overwhelming outer shell has one of the brightest smiles and the biggest hearts I have ever seen. Michelle, shy as she is in her new church family, absolutely sparkles with the love of Christ in her eyes and is bursting to tell people about him.

Neither of these two has led an easy life. Dave found himself in and out of jail eight times since he was 16 for various offenses including robbery and drug possession. He found addictions controlling his life, leading him toward a path full of violence, crime and heavy drugs. Dave fathered six children with four different women, and when his last relationship broke up, he contemplated suicide.

‘This life ate me,’ says Dave. ‘I knew there was something else, but I just had to keep running and riding it out for myself. There was no way that I wanted to commit myself to anything. What I wanted to do was to keep running.’

Michelle’s mum died when she was just four years old, leaving her to drift from place to place with an alcoholic father who loved partying and women. Michelle recalls being sexually abused by the time she was five years old; and because she felt herself unable to love, she eventually began to use her body as a means to get what she wanted.

Michelle found herself in an abusive relationship and quickly formed an addiction to marijuana. She had two children, moved around the country and eventually found herself in and out of rehab with no lasting effect.

‘Everybody that I had ever loved had left me,’ says Michelle, ‘so I learned from a really early age not to love, not to feel anything for anybody else. Eventually my drug addiction really kicked in and that became my best friend in the whole wide world.’

A bigger man

After Dave’s brush with suicide, he realised he needed help. He went to see a drug counsellor who encouraged him to enrol in rehab, but Dave still thought he could do it alone.

‘I thought to myself, “Naw, I can do this.” So I got off the heroin and needles by myself and cut down my drinking,’ says Dave. ‘But there were still a lot of drugs I couldn’t throw out and a lot of attitudes I couldn’t get rid of, so I knew there was something else I had to do.’

He enrolled in rehab at Springhill Residential Treatment Centre in Napier, hoping to finally fully overcome his addictions. Dave has now been drug and alcohol free since 19 August 2007, a fact that makes him beam with pride.

About three weeks after Dave started rehab, he was invited to attend Sunday church at The Salvation Army Napier Corps. Agreeing to go along changed his life. ‘Instantly I felt that I belonged,’ he says with a smile.

Dave continued going to church at the Army and found a stable job outside of drugs for the first time in his life. During that time he also secured accommodation at a halfway house to protect himself against his former lifestyle, and continued to attend Narcotics Anonymous (NA).

After about a month at The Salvation Army Dave made a full-time commitment to Jesus Christ and eventually became a soldier (member) of Napier Corps.

‘I sometimes feel like I don’t know enough, but God puts it in my heart. I don’t need the motorbikes. I don’t need the parties. I don’t need the drugs. I just walked away,’ says Dave. ‘That’s a part of my life that I am happy to give up. Jesus washed me clean. God’s put something else in my heart and I thank him for that.’

A perfect storm

Michelle’s life continued to spiral into a whirl of drugs, sex and depression. Her relationship with her partner was never stable, and Michelle’s relationship with her children was blurred by a constant stream of marijuana and anti-depressants. It was at this time, Michelle says, that she had her first encounter with God.

‘My mates and I were at the beach and I was so scared I thought I was going to die,’ she says. ‘I remember looking up to the sky at God and saying, “What do you want from me?” All of a sudden I got this warmth through my body and it was like all of the sudden, “Yup, I believe. Okay, I believe.”’

So Michelle began taking her steps toward recovery. After her experience at the beach she told her doctor of her drug use, and was encouraged to go to a 12-step drug recovery programme in Napier. Though she agreed to go, Michelle still continued in her lifestyle, not able to admit she had a drug problem.

‘Everyone in the circle there was saying that they had problems with drugs, and when the circle came to me I said it too. But the only reason I said it was because everyone around me was saying it. I felt that I was fine,’ she says. ‘These people were not people that I would hang around with either. It’s crazy to think that a junkie, someone like me, would lie about their problems and still be able to look down on someone else.’

After over a year in rehab, Michelle got out of the abusive relationship for the last time and moved to Rotorua where she met another man and got pregnant. Within three weeks, when Michelle would have been four months pregnant, she went in for a scan and found that her baby had died.

‘My relationship with God was so strong: I hated him. I just couldn’t get over it,’ she says. ‘I ended up having this weird experience where I got to the core of this disease, of this grief and the thought that things were always my fault. I needed to live like it’s not my fault. So I began to realise that this little baby, the way things worked out, all of these feelings and events were getting me closer to God.’

Michelle moved back to Hastings with her now-teenage children and started attending Narcotics Anonymous again. It was there that she came across Dave.

Something is different

‘I was at this stage where I didn’t trust anybody at all, but I remember going to NA on a Friday night and just wanting a hug,’ Michelle says with a twinkle in her eye. ‘And then Dave was there and I asked him if he would give me a hug. I found that I just didn’t want to let go because I felt that he didn’t want to take advantage of me, and when he shared, he shared from his heart. There was just something about him.’

Dave and Michelle got to know each other over time and had their first date, as Dave recalls with perfect clarity, at McDonalds during the opening ceremony for the Olympics on 8 August 2008. But as Michelle soon discovered, Dave’s recovery was radically different than her own because of one thing: his church.

‘One thing fascinating about Dave was him going to the Sallies and that it was important to him,’ she says. ‘I had grown up in NA and I thought that was the only way. But he was going to church and he didn’t go to NA like I did, yet he seemed well. I couldn’t comprehend how someone could get that same wellness not through NA.’

Earlier this year Dave gave his testimony at Napier Corps and invited Michelle to come along. Though her scepticism of church was strong and she wasn’t even sure at that time what a ‘testimony’ was, she agreed to go along, as she says, not to go to church, but just to support Dave. This was her first real church experience.

After that, Michelle says, she didn’t continue to come along to church, but she would wait in the parking lot to take Dave home after the morning service.

‘I would come here and I would wait outside because there was still something in me that thought that they were going to judge me,’ she says. ‘But they would all come outside and say hello to me! It was really weird; they treated me like I was something special. So then I decided to come to church with Dave.’

A child-like faith

Michelle went to the Sallies with Dave, who held her hand as she sat and listened, and eventually began to pray and ask questions. Michelle recalls her instant love of the preaching with its down-to-earth storytelling style. She also recalls with a smile and a wink at Dave the ‘old girls’ of the church who would come to pray with her most Sundays in those early days. But church was still far out of her comfort zone.

Dave and Michelle were married six months and three days after they met, and it wasn’t until after this that Michelle really started to make church her own.

‘It was only about a year ago that I found that I wanted to cry all the time. I would just start crying at church and I just didn’t know why,’ she says. ‘I wasn’t sad; people were just touching me when they were up front. Even the songs would do it! I started to understand the songs.

‘What would get me would be the simple words, “God loves you”, “God is good” ’, she continues. ‘These simple words would just make me start crying.’

As Michelle begins to tell of her full acceptance of Jesus Christ in her life, Dave smiles back at her with tears running down his cheeks. She speaks of praying at the front of church, not knowing why people went up to the front to pray but yet knowing that the commitment she was making was the start of something huge.

Michelle attended The Salvation Army’s New Zeal conference last year where she says ‘something came together’. She found herself becoming closer to her church family and experienced a moment on the last day where she says God freed her of her past.

‘All of a sudden it was like all of my life and all the pain was whizzing past me,’ she says. ‘And it was like everything that had been taken from me had been given back.

‘I am a baby Christian,’ Michelle continues with a smile. ‘I want to know things, I still challenge things, but I know that I am still childlike and I love that about me. My faith just keeps filling up and filling up.’

Dave recently completed the Leadership Jesus Way course in Napier and plans to help mentor other men with similar backgrounds to his own. Michelle continues to find out more about the Bible and the joy it can bring to her life. And together they are growing into exactly what they believe God created them to be.

‘We are learning about the Word [of God] and carrying a message on,’ says Michelle. ‘We’re educating ourselves—we’re getting to know people in the church and we are getting to know each other as well’.

By Cara Wood (from War Cry magazine)

The Right Choice

26 Jan 2010

For a long time I had been in a fairly dark place. I was unhappy, angry and desperate, had virtually no self-confidence and hated myself. Basically, I was severely depressed. My turning point came when I was fired from a job I despised.

Looking back, being fired was the best thing that could have happened to me. It was the kick in the pants that I needed. Because I didn’t have a job, I couldn’t afford my rent. Thankfully, my parents had a spare room they were able to offer me. So, I moved north and into my parents’ place. I’m lucky they’re really supportive and that I’m able to talk openly with them. Everyone needs at least one person they can turn to when they need to talk.

Even though I had a roof over my head, I needed some form of income to cover my bills, so I went to see WINZ. As a condition of receiving my benefit, I had to do a course. That was how I was put onto The Salvation Army Employment Plus. I spoke to Bronwynne and was placed on the ‘Right Choice’ course.

The course was brilliant. It was the best thing I could’ve done and came at the perfect time. Some of the work is tough as it really makes you look at yourself and sometimes pushes you out of your comfort zone. But it really is worth it.

Things in my life keep going from strength to strength

Doing the course helped me realise what was really important to me and what I really wanted to achieve in life. It helped to shift my focus from all the bad stuff in my life, to where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. It helped give me a sense of purpose. The support and friendship that I received at The Salvation Army Employment Plus really helped as well.

As soon as I started focusing on the good stuff, things started getting better. I started to find a lot of jobs that I was interested in and that I could apply for. I ended up with a few interviews and just as I finished the Right Choice course, I was offered a job in an area I was interested in. I accepted that job and haven’t looked back.

Things in my life keep going from strength to strength and I can’t thank The Salvation Army Employment Plus enough for all their help. I love my job, I’m in a great flat with awesome people, and I’m happier than I have been for as long as I can remember. Things are getting better by the day, because I still use the tools I learned on the Right Choice course.

The biggest lesson I’ve learnt in the past year is, if you are positive and put your mind to it, you can achieve your dreams. Take a chance. Make a choice. And take that step to a brighter future.

Looking at Balance

26 Jan 2010

After what can seem to parents an interminably long summer holiday we’re shopping for stationery and counting sleeps as we ready our darlings for another exciting school year. Hooray!

Those whose exam results were less than delightful may already have a cloud over their heads. If that’s so, parents need to nurture optimism about what’s on the horizon. Disappointment remains one of life’s most important, yet most underwhelming, building blocks.

As children head back to school they enter an environment that exists to teach the essential skills for success within society. This includes the basics of reading, writing, maths, communication skills and computing. They’ll learn and practise important social skills: how to follow orders, how to get along with others and how to handle conflict. And they’ll learn about culture—theirs and other people’s. For instance, with Waitangi Day on the horizon, the melting pot of New Zealand school children will learn about the Treaty of Waitangi Day and a bi-cultural relationship that still needs care.

Pray for the nation’s children as they shoulder their school bags to start this new school year. And pray for their teachers. The demands on them are countless and complex. Some will remain fond figures in their students’ memories for a lifetime; others will be recalled as ineffective figures that missed more opportunities than they met.

All I ever really needed to know I learned in kindergarten

Newspaper columnist Robert Fulghum wrote a wonderful piece in the 1980s headlined ‘All I ever really needed to know I learned in kindergarten’. He suggested everyone in the world stop for cookies and milk at three o’clock each day then lie down with their blankets for a nap. Ah, bliss.

Here are a few things Fulghum says he learned in his formative years: ‘Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush …’

Even after leaving teachers, classrooms and lunchtime games of tag behind, we should never forget the lessons learned at school. One lesson, reinforced by timetables and school bells, is the importance of balance: fitting a variety of tasks and experiences into a day.

What does ‘balance’ look like? Here is Fulghum’s school-day definition: ‘Learn some and think some and draw and paint and dance and play and work every day some.’ I don’t know about you, but—with the addition of prayer—that sounds like a worthwhile mix for any day.

By Christina Tyson (from War Cry magazine)

Learning to Listen to God

11 Jan 2010

It can be difficult trying to hear and understand what God wants for your life - to figure out what he is calling you to and to clearly discern his voice.

Lieutenant Pati Leqa, newly commissioned as a Salvation Army officer (ordained minister), and Cadet Geoffrey Miller (commencing his second year of officer training), both from Fiji, discuss their experiences of learning to listen to God and tell how God made it clear that his plan was for them to be Salvation Army officers. The following is adapted for the web - a full version appears in the 16 January edition of War Cry magazine.

How did you begin to understand and hear God’s voice?

Pati: I think it started in our family devotions, as simple as they were, with Scripture and prayer. I grew up watching my mum’s mum spending hours reading her Bible and praying. She and her brother, a Methodist pastor, were some of the main influences on my life in discerning the will of God. In those family times I began to make that connection with God, to yearn for something more, something deeper. From this God started to speak to my heart. I felt there was a call to do God’s work.

Geoffrey: When I was younger I was healed from a rare sickness that was related to a spiritual curse. An Assembly of God (AOG) pastor prayed over me and he became the first person to help me along my spiritual journey as my pastor and mentor. I became involved with that church, but when its college suggested that I become a full-time ordained AOG pastor I told them I didn’t want to as I was already involved in ministry within The Salvation Army. The principal suggested that I needed time to pray and seek God about it. So I sought God and after one month of praying and fasting I came to conclusion that God didn’t really have a ministry for me in the AOG.

How did you hear God calling you to Salvation Army Officership?

Geoffrey: He came to me in a voice. I had been praying and fasting over a month. I couldn’t sleep at all and would be awake all night. All that came to me was to pray, pray, pray. One night when I was about to go to bed I had an urging to go into my Salvation Army corps and pray. I was sitting up praying and suddenly heard a voice that said, ‘I am calling you to The Salvation Army for ministry.’ There was a real peace throughout the rest of that week for me and I could sleep well. I thought to myself that this must be the call of God and I was thrilled about it.

Pati: While I was working at Telecom I began to feel God wanting me to leave there. Though I was getting good pay and had the promise of a promotion I knew that this was God’s voice urging me to leave. So I left. My boss really supported me and told me he admired me for making this choice.

The searching then began as I said to God, ‘Where to now?’ God laid out before me his call on my life. He gave me clear words: ‘I will make my words in your mouth a fire and these people the wood it consumes.’ I had been fasting and praying, just seeking God. I was reading the Scripture a lot and found that same verse in Jeremiah 5:14. That confirmed to me that this was God’s call.

I met Lusi and we got married in 2001. I had completed studies at the South Pacific Missionary Training College where I did theology studies and missionary training and was doing an internship at the Nadi Gospel Brethren Assembly. Lusi was working as a writer for Pacific Islands Business Magazine in its Suva office. We had to work around our schedules and there were times when we wouldn’t meet for weeks. We knew that if we didn’t do something immediately we would have problems in our marriage, so Lusi decided to leave writing and come and support me in the ministry in Nadi.

How do you feel knowing you have obeyed God’s call and are doing what he planned for your life?

Pati: Real excitement and at the same time a sense of huge responsibility. But there’s still that sense that it’s divine. Even with my preparation, I can’t do this on my own. I can’t describe the feeling, but Lusi and I are really excited to see what God has in store for us.

Geoffrey: I feel so peaceful about it because I know that when God calls, he provides; that’s what I have experienced. When I went to Bible College I had nothing. But I went through all three years of study. The College Bursar told me that someone paid my fees. And I know that if I have to venture out to do something that concerns God’s calling on my life for me to do, whether it’s hard or means to be another country or means adapting to life or concerns over money or whatever, I don’t have any worries at all in stepping out because I know God will provide.

What advice can you give to others who are trying to figure out God’s call on their life?

Geoffrey: The best and only way to hear God’s call is to seek him—that’s the first thing you should do. Seek God, pray, ask the Lord to reveal himself—reveal his plan—in whatever way what he is wanting. God can use other people as instruments who give confirmation, but it is most important to seek the Lord about it: fasting, praying, spending time with him, reading his Word and having that real deep desire to just seek him.

Pati: One thing that I have learned, and that Lusi and I have learned as a couple, is just to be obedient, hard as it may seem sometimes. Learn to say, ‘Yes, Lord, you know what is best.’ Learn to trust God.

I’m not perfect; I’ve failed a lot. There are times that I am tempted, and I have succumbed; I have relied on my experience and my knowledge instead of truly just waiting on God. But I don’t care how many times Satan gets me down, I get up and continue to fight. God is so on target; he knows what he is doing. Trust him!

By Sarah Healey (from War Cry magazine)

The Second Journey

08 Jan 2010

O Ira, what are we going to do with the rest of our lives?’ That’s the question the heroine of Anne Tyler’s novel Breathing Lessons poses to her husband.

It’s a question that rises from within when one’s chosen path no longer seems enticing or fulfilling. It’s a heart cry that’s sometimes acted out in damaging fashion, with out-of-character or downright irrational behaviour (extra-marital affairs, spending splurges and the like). Consequently, it’s often labelled as a ‘mid-life crisis’ question.

But in a world where it’s becoming more usual for people to switch work paths anything from five to 15 times, this question can come at any age. It’s sometimes birthed out of disappointment or even trauma. Those who work with cancer survivors, for instance, say it’s common for them to seek out more meaningful avenues of work or leisure. No one says, ‘I’m glad I got cancer’, but almost everyone says, ‘It changed the way I look at my life, the way I handle relationships, my career—everything.’

The question necessarily arises out of unemployment or job insecurity. The New Zealand Government’s career services website features the story of a man who started a new job in the forestry industry after his supermarket job was restructured. ‘From the moment I started, I knew this job was for me,’ he says. ‘I just wish I’d known about it 20 years earlier.’

At its core, the question: ‘What am I going to do with the rest of my life?’ is concerned with investment. It’s on the heart or the lips of a person who senses their innate worth as God’s creation, and who may be questioning whether it’s time to better deliver on their worth rather than keep-on-keeping-on in the current, perhaps mundane routine of everyday life.

Author Brennan Manning suggests in The Ragamuffin Gospel that this is the prevailing question of life’s ‘second journey’. It comes when we are aware that we have only a limited amount of time left to accomplish what really matters, he says. This awareness sheds light on what really counts and provides a new centre.

A Second Call from Jesus

For the Christian, says Manning, this second journey, which typically occurs between the ages of 30 and 60, is often accompanied by a second call from Jesus: a call to a deeper, more mature and less naive faith that replaces some of the idealism of youth. This second call invites us to reflect on ‘the nature and quality of our faith … our hope in the new and not yet, and our love for God and people’.

If, at the start of a new year, you are considering leaping into some new opportunity, listen carefully for God’s wise counsel as you consider the pros and cons. God may have truly super plans for you this year, so be open to the intersection of your availability with his possibilities!

By Christina Tyson (from War Cry magazine)

Reasons to be thankful and hopeful

21 Dec 2009

Despite our considerable economic problems, New Zealand is still a great place to live so let’s look at some things about New Zealand that we should be thankful, or at least hopeful, for.

We are Honest

The cult TV series Flight of the Conchords depicts New Zealanders as basically honest and trusting, perhaps naively so. Transparency International produce a ‘corruptions perceptions index’ ¹ or CPI which measures and ranks countries by the degree of corruption that is evidenced in public life. New Zealand ranks 1st out of 180 countries on a CPI of 9.4 just ahead of Demark on 9.3 and way ahead of our ex-convict Australian cousins who came in 8th at 8.7.

We are Free

Don Brash the former National Party leader and Reserve Bank governor has recently chaired a group known as the 2025 Taskforce whose job it was to find ways of closing the income between New Zealand and Australia. The 2025 Taskforce completed a report on New Zealand’s economic prospects entitled ‘Answering the $64,000 Question’.² Most commentators have criticised his proposals as being ideology dressed up as policy given Mr Brash’s penchant for seldom allowing the facts to get in the way of a good idea. How else can we explain this reports claim that … ‘Good estimates done in other countries using a variety of methods suggest that as much as one third of the income gap to Australia could be closed if we are able to move New Zealand to world best practices across all the major areas of regulation’ (p117). It is difficult to understand how New Zealand is so far behind ‘world best practices’ when the neo-liberal group, the Economic Freedom Network,³ report that New Zealand is ranked third in the world for economic freedom including being first in terms of business-friendly regulation and in the regulation of the banking system.

We are Well Off

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) publishes a Human Development Report and a Human Development Index⁴ which reports progress in key development indicators such as life expectancy, education enrolments and per capita income. The 2009 report is based on 2007 data and ranks New Zealand 20th in the world with an index score of 0.950 well behind second ranked Australia with a score of 0.970. New Zealand however ranked 14th overall in life expectancy and second in enrolment rates but we were weighed down by our 32nd in per capita GDP.

We are Satisfied

The Gallup organisation undertakes a ‘World Poll’ of people’s life satisfaction. The 2006 Poll ranked New Zealanders as the 9th most satisfied with their lives scoring 7.3 out of an 11 point score. We are apparently slightly less satisfied than Australians and slightly happier than the Flemish (or Belgians).

We Don't Work Too Much

This general happiness is also borne out by the Quality of Life Survey undertaken by Statistics New Zealand and reported in The Social Report 2009.⁵ In 2008 78 percent of working New Zealanders were satisfied or very satisfied with their work-life balance and three-quarters of New Zealanders are satisfied or very satisfied with their recreation and leisure time. These proportions were slightly higher than in 2006. The survey shows that the young and the old are the happiest and that all ethnicities are more or less uniformly happy.

We are Prosperous

The Legatum Institute publishes the Legatum Prosperity Index which is a broadly defined measure of prosperity which extends beyond financial wealth.⁶ This index ranks New Zealand as the tenth most prosperous country in 2009 just behind United States and just ahead of Ireland. We ranked a poor 27th in terms of our economic fundamentals which is hardly surprising but 1st in terms of the quality of our social capital and 6th in terms of personal freedoms.

Our Kids are Clever

Despite the misgivings of our Minister of Education Anne Tolley over the quality of our education system New Zealand school students appear to do quite well by international; standards. The Programme for International Student Assessment undertaken by the OECD ranked New Zealand 2nd to Finland in the proportion of 15 year old students achieving in science at a high level. New Zealand is also ranked 5th just behind Finland and just ahead of Demark in graduation rates for tertiary students and 7th overall in our expenditure on education.⁷

So have a great Christmas everyone and make the most of what you have. From all accounts we have a great deal to be thankful for so lets give thanks for that.

By Alan Johnson (from SPPU)

¹See Transparency International’s website for the Corruptions Perceptions Index
²See 2025 Taskforce's website for the report, Answering the $64,000 Question
³See Free the World's website for the report, Economic Freedom of the World
⁴See The United Nations's website for the Human Development Index
⁵See Statistic New Zealand's website for The Social Report 2009, pp54-55 and pp90-91
⁶See Legatum Institute's website for the Legatum Prosperity Index
⁷See OECD's website for the report, The Programme for International Student Assessment

The Christmas Blues

15 Dec 2009

As a child I raced towards Christmas Day. My Christmas pilgrimage began after school ended. Mary and Joseph may have travelled by donkey (the Bible only tells us they arrived in Bethlehem, not their mode of transport), but our family travelled by Kingswood as we journeyed from Wellington to Palmerston North and Grandma’s.

Family Festivity

Aged Christmas decorations were taken out of storage and the tree trimmed. We dusted off deck chairs and hung out under the summer sun, cycling to the local swimming pool as the temperature climbed. No pump bottles of sunscreen; sunburn (and peeling!) was a summer ritual. Seven cents bought a Popsicle in those days, and the local dairy would even choc-dip a lemonade or cola ice block for an extra few cents.

Money went further, but consumerism was still the order of the day. I recall the year my sister and I got Barbie dolls—an extravagant gift. I also remember snapping off one of my doll’s arms within just a few hours and my father, the quintessential Kiwi DIY-er, fashioning a metal pin to restore her to full mobility.

Church attendance wasn’t a big part of my family’s Christmas observance. My grandmother, a churchgoer for most of her life, had ‘fallen out’ with her local church after the death of a son from cancer in his mid-teens. I understand her response to such a tragedy but wish the bitterness that gripped her after my uncle’s death could have found solace in a God who is no stranger to suffering.

The Christmas Gloom

However, as I head towards this Christmas, disappointment colours my own outlook on the season. The latter part of this year has brought challenges that, it’s fair to say, I didn’t anticipate this time last year and that I am struggling to resolve. I am sure that I will, in time, but I’m not there yet. And so a sense of gloom hangs heavy this December. I sense it as my 15-year-old son asks: ‘Are we having a real Christmas tree this year?’ and my initial (unspoken) response is: ‘Do we have to have a tree at all?!’

I’m surely not alone in my dread at putting on a ‘Christmas face’. Christmas exacerbates existing stressors and can be a tipping point. It’s therefore no academic exercise to consider an antidote to Christmas gloom. But neither do I want some clichéd prescription for ‘joy in a box’. For me, the answer that seems to be revealing itself is returning to the essence of that first Christmas, before the trappings of Christmas consumerism, sentimentality and holiday making got mixed in.

A Season of Waiting

When Jesus was born there was strong anticipation at what the coming of Messiah (deliverer) would mean for his people. This was no trouble-free time: God’s people were suffering. They may not have sat in a counsellor’s office to tally their ‘stress scale’ scores (Christmas carries a score of 16 points, by the way), but they knew that life was not always easy. And they were calling on God to put things right.

Jesus came into a season of waiting. And for me, and perhaps some of you, this Christmas is such a season. Perhaps you are waiting to see what God will do next in and around your present reality.

Waiting is hard. When my children were young we didn’t put presents under the tree until almost Christmas Day because the anticipation (and temptation!) would become almost overwhelming. As they’ve grown older they understand that the presents are there but they’re secret; not yet revealed. This is the essence of Christmas gift giving: anticipation and expectation together. Something good is coming (there is no doubt), but we have to wait a while.

As I consider how the story of Jesus intersects with my own, particularly when my own story has hit what novelists might term a ‘narrative challenge’, I am reminded that when life gets muddled and messy, it’s especially important to look for signs of God’s presence and listen for his will. I need to watch and pray.

The ancient writer cries, ‘How long?’ to God (Psalm 94), but quickly adds: ‘When I said, “My foot is slipping,” your love, O Lord, supported me.’ While our instinct in tough times (or simply at Christmas) can be to ignore God, these are the very times we need to turn our face towards him.

By Christina Tyson (From War Cry)

Simeon’s Vigil

15 Dec 2009

A Man of Great Hope

I love Simeon’s story because he was a man of such great hope. At the time when Jesus was born the Israelites had already been in captivity for a thousand years or more and were under Roman rule. King Herod, around this time, ordered the massacre of all Jewish baby boys in Bethlehem and placed forbidden idols in the temple. The Jews were not willing subjects to the Romans and this most certainly was not a time of overwhelming hope for Israel’s reconstruction.

But Simeon went against the grain. He was a man who still dared to hope that God would carry out his plan to free Israel from their bondage through the coming of the Messiah.

I can’t help but wonder what Simeon must have looked like to the people around him. I imagine this old, stooped man with a white beard and kind, sparkling brown eyes, leaning in with a smile of heedless joy on his face as he whispers, ‘He’s coming soon, you know. The Messiah, he’s coming!’ They must have thought he was crazy—I probably would have.

The Promised Messiah

But Simeon bubbled over with the joy of the Holy Spirit and the promise he had received that he would live to see God’s promised Messiah dwell among the people.

What I love most about Simeon’s story, though, is what happened when he met his Messiah—a tiny baby only eight days old lying in his mother’s arms.

I wonder how Simeon pictured it would be when he finally did meet the Messiah. I wonder if he expected to see Jesus as the Messiah realised, performing miracles and heralding Israel out of bondage, not as a child brought to the temple to be circumcised.

I think that if I had been in Simeon’s position I would have doubted myself when looking at that baby: how can I be so sure that this baby out of all the rest will one day step into his role as Messiah? Maybe if God opened the babe’s mouth and he spoke, maybe then I could be sure.

Not a Doubting Moment

Simeon didn’t spare a moment for doubt. I see his brown eyes looking into Mary’s, full of tears, as he asks to hold the child in his arms—I love that we can assume that Mary allowed this easily. And when Simeon’s eyes meet those of baby Jesus, we can be sure that his spirit leapt inside him and that he knew in an instant he could die in peace because here, in his arms, was the salvation of Israel, the one promised since ages past; the one promised to change the world for forever to come.

Simeon didn’t, as I certainly would have, question Joseph and Mary on how they planned to rear the boy; he didn’t run him into the temple and demand that Jesus learn there exactly how the Messiah was meant to behave. He didn’t question why God had not allowed him to see the Messiah in action; he simply looked into the child’s eyes and praised God purely and completely.

There was no doubt, there were no questions. In Simeon there was only joy, an even bigger dose of hope than had been there that morning and the knowledge that it would be accomplished, just as God had said.

I like to think that Simeon went home that afternoon in total peace and perhaps a bit straighter—his beloved Israel would finally be saved and he himself would finally go in peace.

God's Gift

I don’t think that you and I view Jesus’ birth in the same way that Simeon did. We get caught up in consumerism and tradition, in staying out of debt and spending time with family.

Christmas is often the busiest time of the year and can easily become a time when we forget about the magnitude of God’s gift even as we read from Luke before opening our presents on Christmas morning. Jesus’ birth sometimes even becomes a technicality in the overall story: well, yeah, he was born, but it’s the fact that he died and rose again that’s of real importance!

But listen! Christ came and dwelt among us because of the great, loving and incredible sacrifice of our awesome God. Not only that, but Christ lived as we do, encountered temptation and overcame it as a man—he became all that we aspire to be.

Without the birth of the child in the manger we would live a faith submerged in sin and devoid of hope.

By Cara Wood (from War Cry magazine)

‘God pulled me through’

14 Dec 2009

I was brought into the Mormon faith, and struggled with the strictness of it. I got dis-fellowshipped after my fourth year at the church school and ended up going off the track when I went to AUT in Auckland to become a chef and met my wife in a nightclub.

She got pregnant about a month later. We married when I was 20 and she was 19 and I worked at the Sheraton Hotel. We struggled through the first five years of our marriage and I got very sick when I was 21 with a tumour in my chest. We lost our house and I picked up a rare disease, which affects my adrenaline, and Addison’s disease.

But God pulled me through that. Both of my illnesses are treatable, which is amazing. So I went back into work, and out there in the secular world priorities are upside down. I ended up getting really caught up in it, and drink probably became my worst drug.

I struggled with liquor for about nine years. It even got worse when my wife went for a job here at The Salvation Army about 12 years ago. When she told me not to drink, I went way, way overboard.

My wife started fostering children about eight years ago when I was right at the peak of this journey of self-destruction, and about six years ago I smashed my company car. My whole life changed from that day.

I ended up doing my community hours here at the Sallies after going through the court system. One of my jobs was to paint the walls of the prayer room. You know what? My name was on that wall 24 times. That’s powerful stuff!

I started coming to church with my wife because I had nothing else to do. After a while I started listening to the promptings of the Spirit and realised that in the preaching there was a lot of stuff for me.

I accepted a job working for Community Ministries as a driver and started getting to days apart where I wasn’t thinking of my drinking. My priorities changed and family came at the top. I had been at The Salvation Army for about six months and knew that I needed to make a commitment, so I became a Salvation Army soldier.

One of my first things from God after that was to work with the homeless. I really love these men. I’ve been working with them for four years. I know this has come from God and I really care about these guys. I play a huge part with the homeless people in West Auckland; I am able to have a voice for them.

I love this job. I absolutely love it. God has taught me about who I am, about who Malvin Reihana is: I am a child of God and he loves me so much.

Community at Christmas

14 Dec 2009

Zandea grew up attending church, but when the fellowship she was a part of with her mum split, she lost interest and no longer felt drawn to a church community.

‘At that point in my life I was quite rebellious,’ says Zandea. ‘I didn’t enjoy church because it didn’t relate to me in any way. So I told Mum to go find a church and that when she did I would come along for her sake.’

Zandea’s mum started coming to The Salvation Army in Waitakere, known locally as ‘The Faith Factory’, helping with their community meals by washing dishes with her friend. Later, when she realised that The Faith Factory was a church fellowship as well, she began attending worship services. 

Zandea visited The Faith Factory a few times, and although she appreciated the preaching and the community feel of the place, it still did not resonate with who she was then. It wasn’t until she had a visual encounter with the suffering Christ that her faith became her own.

‘My mum invited me along to Passion of the Christ and that was my first God encounter,’ she says. ‘I had heard messages about Jesus Christ dying on the cross before, but it just didn’t click for me. It was all words.

‘Visually seeing the suffering and the pain and the anguish, that hurt,’ she continues. ‘I found myself saying, “If that’s how much you love me; if that’s how much you love me, Jesus, that you would die on the cross for me, then I want to give you my all.”’

Planting the Seed

Zandea attended church at The Faith Factory the next morning and accepted Christ into her heart during the altar call.

‘Whenever I think of the love of Jesus, I just look at the cross,’ she says. ‘When I testify about his love for me, it’s like I’m speechless. It’s like there aren’t enough words to explain just how much I feel overwhelmed by that. That’s the memory I will always have, going back to the cross: that’s what keeps breaking me every time.’

In 2006, two years later, Zandea joined the Waitakere Community Ministries team to give back a bit of what she had received.

But Zandea, who hadn’t known what food banks were before accepting her new position, had a lot to learn about The Salvation Army’s call in the community.

‘Let me tell you, it was a real big learning curve and a really big challenge,’ she says. ‘My eyes have been wide open about the needs and helping people, but also encouraging and empowering them to help themselves.’

‘Sometimes the giving doesn’t quite hit the mark because there is more underlying in these people’s lives,’ says Zandea. ‘So we see how we can gauge that opportunity too, learning how to build the relationships and move forward. These people become part of the family.’

Watching it Grow

During past Christmas seasons, Community Ministries at The Faith Factory has given out food hampers to families who have come to them throughout the year for help, whether it be for physical, emotional, mental or spiritual reasons.

Though Zandea says that families have gone away blessed by the hampers, because of changes in funding and because the team has birthed an even greater community focus, she felt the food hampers weren’t quite ‘hitting the mark’.

‘For me, Christmas time is such a challenge because I see a lot of gifts going out all the time, and sometimes I sit there and wonder if we are actually hitting the mark with that,’ she says. ‘We want to do something and do it well, and to do that we need to do it with the people coming through our doors.

‘For instance, we work with some homeless guys that we provide utilities and meals for on a weekly basis,’ she continues. ‘What are they going to do at Christmas? If we give them a hamper, how are they going to cook it? Where are they going to prepare a Christmas lunch? Who are they going to share it with?’

So this Christmas Zandea and her team are working toward their goal of building relationships with the community by having a Christmas banquet on Christmas Day with an open invitation and a heart to serve.

Collecting the Harvest

Zandea set to work with her team organising the lunch, inviting those who would have nowhere to go at Christmas and getting the wider Salvation Army church family involved. The response has been overwhelming.

A local chef, who owns a café in nearby Henderson, offered his services for the dinner, even offering to open his own kitchen on the day if required. Salvation Army members have offered to help peel potatoes, set up the hall and come along with their families to connect with other members of the community.

‘I envisage that we are going to sit around these tables and we are actually going to talk and to reflect and ask, “What has been good and what has been not so good this year?”’ she says. ‘It has been a long year and a hard year with deaths or addictions or whatever it is, but see where we are now and see what we celebrate.

‘It’s just bringing the love and the joy of what Christmas is all about,’ she continues, ‘being around people that love and care for you. As long as I see people sitting around and having a meal together, for me we have achieved it.’

The message Zandea and her team want to send this Christmas is simple. ‘It’s not about handouts; it’s about coming and joining us because we want you to know that there is a family here. We’re saying: “I want to love and care for and support you through whatever you’re going through”—that’s what Christmas is about for us this year.

By Cara Wood (from War Cry magazine)

Adopt-a-cell

05 Dec 2009

The ‘Adopt-a-cell’ project is being run by the Prison Chaplaincy Service of Aotearoa New Zealand (PCSANZ) in conjunction with Caritas.

The Salvation Army’s representative on the PSCANZ Board is Major Graham Rattray. ‘Prison visitation and court ministries have been significant parts of The Salvation Army’s work since our beginnings,’ he says. ‘The recent growth explosion of our prison populations calls for an even greater response—and the Adopt-a-cell prayer project is an excellent way to do something.

The Power of Prayer

‘Remember the power of 24/7 Prayer, how Salvationists from corps and social programmes were galvanised through a shared commitment to prayer? 24/7 Prayer must surely be seen as a turning point for The Salvation Army as we sought God’s will and power for our movement. We know prayer works, and so I’d encourage Salvationists to sign up for Adopt-a-cell. Pray that New Zealand prison cells become a source of grace, conversion and redemption for prisoners.’

Kilian de Lacy is the PCSANZ spokesperson for Adopt-a-cell. She says, ‘Many of us are familiar with Matthew chapter 25, where Jesus says unequivocally: “I was in prison and you visited me.” Most Christians are not able to “visit” a prison in the physical sense, but we can all pray!’

Those who get involved in Adopt-a-cell receive a prayer card naming a particular cell in a specific unit of a New Zealand prison. While the identities of prisoners are not shared, Jesus, who knows what it is like to be in prison, knows each individual by name—and loves them with an undying love.

As well as praying for present and past occupants of their assigned cell, people are asked to pray for the families and victims of prisoners, the chaplains who minister to prisoners, and all who staff New Zealand prisons.

The Financial and Social Cost

Says Kilian, ‘In this country, we are constantly being told that, in the interests of our safety, we must lock up those who break the law for longer and longer periods and, preferably, “throw away the key”. The result is huge numbers of people housed in more and more prisons at immense cost—financially and socially—to all of us.

‘It is not enough for us as Christians to simply shake our heads at the ever-increasing levels of violence in our society. It is not enough to consign those who commit the violence to prison and forget about them. In due course, most prisoners will have served their time and be released. Do we want them just to pick up where they left off and go back to jail, or do we want them to find redemption during their time in custody?

‘We are in a position to help this come about. Prayer is stronger than chains and prison bars. So let’s do it! Let’s reform our prison population by prayer.’

• To join the Adopt-a-cell prayer team, contact Kilian de Lacy, p: (04) 381 3340; PO Box 9, Wellington 6140; or e: Kilian

Julian (‘Junior’) Yates

04 Dec 2009

I used to get lots of hidings. My mum was a dealer and guys would come to the house and give me hidings. Barnardos hooked me up with Granddad and Nana, a Christian couple in Porirua, who adopted me when I was five.

Granddad used to read Scriptures to me when I went to bed. A year after moving in with them, I accepted Jesus. A few years later, in 2002, Granddad passed away. I was 12. When he died, I felt I didn’t like Jesus anymore. It wasn’t fair.

I got into a group of friends and we started our own little crew—a small gang called STO (Street Thug Outlaws). We got into drink, drugs and heaps of fights. We fought the Mongrel Mob and other groups because we wanted to get known.

I thought it was cool at first, but then I got a bit scared. I thought I was going to die. My Nana was getting sick of me, too. She didn’t want me to get killed or anything. She rang The Salvation Army.

That’s when I moved to The Inn, a boy’s home [run by Wellington 614 Corps]. I soon lost my connection to my gang in Porirua, but I drank heaps. It felt good to drink.

One day I held up a bottle store. I was off drinking the bottles when two police dogs sniffed me out and I was arrested. I had old charges as well, so I got sentenced to six months in jail. I only ended up serving three, which isn’t very long, but it was long for me, eh!

Jail affected me a lot. I missed everyone. It sucked. I went to church on Sundays, though, and I prayed a lot in jail—every morning, every night. I wanted Jesus to help me. I used to listen to my mate next door read the Bible to me.

I rang The Salvation Army on my last day in jail and they invited me back to The Inn. I took classes at Wellington City Mission and joined a small group at 614 Corps.

I’ve cut down on my drinking dramatically. I’m staying out of trouble. I haven’t been arrested and I haven’t fought anyone.

I made a commitment to Jesus and, on 11 October, I became an adherent [member] in The Salvation Army.

I never really used to smile. Now I’m happy. Life is pretty good, eh!

• For more on Wellington 614 Corps, go to www.614wellington.org

One Shot for Glory

04 Dec 2009

One shot for glory: could there have been any more perfect marketing slogan than the one used for the New Zealand v Bahrain 2010 Fifa World Cup Qualifier? On 14 November over 35,000 spectators at the Wellington Cake Tin, aware of the Fifa ‘away goals’ rule, wanted just one goal: one more than Bahrain.

Ricki Herbert’s squad knew they were part of a mighty moment and brought their all to the match. Fitness, technique, discipline and the passion of their hearts: all were at their coach’s disposal.

I witnessed this epic struggle just six rows back from both teams’ benches and, to a man, our team was glorious! Ryan Nelson was solid in defence and inspirational as captain. But it was Rory Fallon’s surgical first half goal, off  a corner cross from Wellingtonian Leo Bertos, and Mark Paston’s heart-stopping save from a penalty in the second half that secured victory for the All Whites.

A goal makes a difference

There isn’t one aspect of life: sports, education, work, family, health or friendships, where a goal doesn’t make the difference. To avoid mediocrity and realise a sense of purpose we have to set clear goals and pursue them. Goals help us narrow life’s choices from an abundance of options; they keep us being sidelined from what’s most important.

The Bible stresses that when it comes to pursuing a goal, determination and focus on our coach’s direction are essential: ‘… So we must get rid of everything that slows us down, especially the sin that just won’t let go. And we must be determined … We must keep our eyes on Jesus, who leads us and makes our faith complete.’ (Hebrews 12:1-2, CEV)

Motivation

Each of us is going after wins in life, but the key to securing those wins is not the ‘what’ of a particular goal but the ‘why’. Motivation matters most.

The All Whites’ goal was to win that 14 November qualifier, but the ‘why’ was what fired them up. It wasn’t the glory that came on the day (heady as it was), or the money (and we’re talking up to $13 million); their ‘why’ was the chance to compete on the world’s greatest football stage. That’s what made this the greatest match of every one of those players’ lives.

Perhaps you’ve set some important goals, yet they still seem unachievable. Maybe they’re even more distant today than when you first set them. Go back to the ‘why’ of those goals. Consider the positive impact of reaching them: What will it mean for you? Who will it help? How will it change the world, even on a local scale?

Remind yourself of why you set your goals in the first place. Determine to pursue them with all the discipline and passion of your heart.

Sometimes success comes down to a goal. Pure and simple.

By Christina Tyson (from War Cry)

Why Church?

16 Nov 2009

Many people find church a hard part of their walk with Christ whether because of hurts, time commitments, circumstances or because they sense hypocrisy. Some of us find it hard to relate to Christians who hold different views than us, we wish the music was louder or softer or that the organ would come back in style, and we just can’t seem to agree with our pastor’s view on theology.

So why do so many of us still attend church regularly, and why do we view it as so important?

First, going to church is an expression of our love for God. When we come together on a Sunday we spend quality time together lifting up God’s name. While we do seek to praise God through our daily devotions or when reading the Bible, a primary purpose for church worship is to take time out of our schedules and spent time meditating on and praising the name of our Lord.

Positive Community

Second, church is a beautiful place for positive community. While we all carry our different baggage with us to church fellowship (see Stephen W. Simpson’s article Why I Went Back to Church: God on the Ground for an interesting take on this), God calls us to come together with other believers regularly. In fact, God states that when we are in a relationship with him, it will follow that we are in fellowship with others (1 John 1:7), and that where two or more believers gather together, there God will be also (Matthew 18:20).

Similar to the issue of community is the idea of accountability. When we engage with other believers we have motivation towards living a right life before God. Meeting with others and talking about our triumphs and our struggles spurs us forward in our personal faith journeys.

Bringing Honour to God

Also, attending church brings honour to God and pleases him. When God met Moses on the mountain and gave him the Ten Commandments, the fourth commandment he gave was: ‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy’. God cared enough about setting a day aside for his glory that he included this in his law. When we honour his request, we please God.

Christians will never be perfect people, which can make church-going at times unattractive; and there are people or situations that can hurt us and make us feel distant from church, but praise, the community, the accountability and the honour it brings to God overwhelm the problems that we tend to face. Plus, as Stephen W. Simpson says, ‘We can get over ourselves and the little things that divide us, learning to see each other as God does.’

(from War Cry magazine)

Pete Bartholomew: A Plumber After God’s Heart

16 Nov 2009

Pete Bartholomew grew up in Porirua with his family and attended a Salvation Army corps as a boy. When his parents stopped attending the church, Pete followed and spent little time in church thereafter.

‘Mum and Dad, for whatever reason, got out of the whole church thing completely. They gave us kids a choice to stay, but I was young and kids just choose what their parents choose,’ says Pete. ‘Every now and then when I went to Grandma and Granddad’s on a Sunday I would go to church with them, but for years and years I didn’t go at all.’

When Pete was 25 he met and started dating a Christian girl, Carolyn, or Caz, who encouraged Pete to retry church and faith in God as an adult. He came back to church briefly, but when the relationship ended for a time, so did Pete’s church involvement.

‘When I was away from Caz I suppose I kind of talked to God in my own way, but at that time I wasn’t into it that much,’ Pete says. I said to myself and to God that if I got back with Caz again that it would be a good sign for me to go back to church.’

Though Pete now admits that giving God an ultimatum probably wasn’t the best way to go about his faith, he and Carolyn did pick up their relationship again, which to him was an answer to prayer.

Grounded Roots

As Pete and Carolyn grew back into their relationship and eventually got engaged, Pete’s relationship with the church and with Jesus Christ grew alongside. And though Pete and Carolyn initially attended a Wellington city church together, it was Pete’s roots in The Salvation Army that kept drawing him back in.

‘Granddad had invited me to two men’s breakfasts at The Salvation Army, and I got to meet a few of the guys from that and just started regularly going to it,’ says Pete. ‘We just recently started to go along to the meetings on Sunday too.’

When asked what drew him back to his initial church roots, Pete sites the ever-lasting example of his grandparents, the warmth of the people at the corps (Salvation Army church) and the music.

A New Mission

Pete and Carolyn were married on 18 April of this year, and Pete started his own plumbing business in August. He continued to be regularly involved in men’s groups and events at Tawa Corps. At a men’s breakfast earlier this year, Major Keith Wray, corps officer at Tawa, invited Pete to consider going to Tonga as part of a missions project with the corps.

‘I went to say goodbye after a men’s breakfast to Keith and he just happened to mention that the trip was coming up and that someone had cancelled,’ says Pete. ‘So he asked me on it and straight away I got excited about the prospect.’

Pete joined nine others from 5 to 14 September on a trip to Nuku’alofa, Tongatapu, where he planned to help the group paint a kindergarten and replace security mesh around the kindergarten and adjoining corps.

When he got there, he found that he had much more to tackle. ‘When I first arrived we went to Captain Sila Siufanga’s (officer at Nuku’alofa Corps) house and I noticed, as I do with plumbing, being a licensed plumber, that his toilet was dripping and just constantly running,’ says Pete. ‘So I mentioned it to him and pulled it apart for him and got the right part for him to go off to the building merchant and grab the right bit. Then I fitted it for him.

‘When he realised what I had done, he gave me a few more things to fix up where we were painting at Supo,’ laughed Pete.

Major Rex Johnson, regional commander in Tonga, soon heard tale of Pete’s plumbing expertise and whisked him away from painting one morning to help another corps officer whose home was completely without water because of a dysfunctional water tank.

‘The other job that I did was spouting at one of the officer’s properties. All of the spouting he had done by himself and it was no good,’ says Pete.

‘The downpipes were essentially disconnected and falling the wrong way and the spouting basically looked like a zip,’ says Pete. ‘It went up and down and all over the place, and so nothing got into the tank. So I just used what they had there and fixed it up so it worked again!’

So Much More

The corps officer, who had been travelling to the local corps each day to wash his clothes and shower, was incredibly grateful to Pete for the work that he did. Pete, however, just saw it as his way to share the love of Christ.

‘I’d like to do more,’ Pete told me on his last night in Tonga. ‘I have sort of fallen in love with the place here. I know that they have bad water problems around the place: I saw it myself. The place that I went to was one place out of a lot of places that don’t have any running water.

‘I’m not sure how or anything, I’ll sort of play it by ear and see how things fall into place, but I’d like to do a few more trips like this one, except spend a bit more time getting people into storing the water from the rain into tanks, even if it’s putting up spouting and that sort of thing,’ he continued.

Before leaving Tonga, Pete left behind some plumbing supplies and also agreed to send over parts to ensure easier fixes for smaller problems, like leaky toilets, and a guitar for the Supo kindergarten in the near future.

‘The parts that I used to fix the toilet here were only 50 or 70-cent things, so they cost me nothing; but here in Tonga they are quite expensive—four dollars or so for some of the things,’ he says. ‘So I’ll send them over here to Tonga to hopefully make a difference.’

A Change in Heart

While in Tonga, Pete also began to experience a new side of church he had not yet fully encountered; and his favourite part was seeing the different way the Tongan Salvationists did church, particularly in the smaller corps.

‘Going to the smaller churches was the best part for me because they have the most energy and they are the most lively,’ he says. ‘I really liked all the kids and the faster music and the dancing too.’

More importantly, however, Pete grew to realise even more the incredible importance that faith and community in Christ were beginning to have on his own life, particularly as he and Carolyn are expecting their first child early next year.

‘After going along to the services in Tawa, getting to know people and then getting to go on this trip, it has just been amazing: getting to know everyone a bit more intimately and seeing the whole church scene a bit more and how it’s really based on good foundations and is a healthy environment,’ says Pete.

‘And when Caz and I have our kid,’ he adds, ‘I’m really looking forward to introducing our kid to God and that style of living, because it’s just such a healthy and non-harming environment for a kid to grow up in. I’m really excited for that’.

By Cara Wood (from War Cry magazine)

Jesus Changed Me

10 Nov 2009

I first met Lineni at Popua, an area in Tongatapu (the main island of the Kingdom of Tonga). Lineni was working as a volunteer for The Salvation Army Mobile Health Clinic there and agreed to show me around the area. As we walked, I discovered just how far her passion went for Jesus Christ.

Lineni and her seven siblings grew up in a Christian home, her parents becoming involved in Tonga’s first Salvation Army congregation in 1986. Her parents always insisted on church involvement—Lineni remembers attending church activities, even when she felt too lazy, from a young age. She became a junior soldier (child Salvation Army member) when she was 10 years old.

Wrong way

When Lineni started college, she became a senior soldier (adult Salvation Army member) and remained involved in corps activities, but she soon discovered the pull of other temptations and began to fall into trouble with the wrong crowd at school.

‘My lifestyle changed,’ she says. ‘I began mixing with other girls who didn’t go to church. I was still attending church, but my mind wasn’t on Christian things.’

When Lineni was 17, she found that she was pregnant and came to her family, and the church, to seek the help she needed.

‘My family was cross and upset with me, but I know that Jesus was with me during this time,’ she says. ‘I knew I had messed up, so I made a promise to my dad, and especially to God, that I would not make this mistake again.’

Lineni’s parents flew her over to American Samoa where Lineni’s sister lived, to have the child, a baby girl. Her sister’s family adopted the child, and, feeling homesick for her church—Lineni convinced her father to allow her to return to Tonga where she promised her life would change.

Second chance

In 2005 Lineni came back to Tonga where she became more involved in Salvation Army programmes, but she did not invest her whole heart into it and still did not wear her uniform proudly.

Sadly, Lineni’s dissatisfaction led to a continuance in her old lifestyle with her old friends, and soon she found herself pregnant again. This time, because she feared her father’s response, she begged her sister in American Samoa to once again take her in so that she could hide what had happened.

‘The truth is that I had no hope because I had no purpose in life, and nobody trusted me anymore because of the type of lifestyle that I was in before and the evil actions I showed,’ says Lineni. ‘I thought that was the fun life and true peace, and many times I was proud of it and thought it made me a real woman to do those things.’

Lineni’s father soon discovered her condition. He insisted that she stay in Tonga and learn how to be responsible and care for the baby on her own. When Lemaki Jr. was born, Lineni realised fully her position and knew her life would have to change.

This is it!

Slowly, Lineni began to find her way back into faith, and in 2008 she was invited to attend the large-scale Make Change youth conference in New Zealand. During her preparation for the event Lineni grew closer to God, felt amazing encouragement and support, and when she came back, she had completely changed.

‘At Make Change, God touched my life in a special way and I accepted the Lord Jesus Christ into my life with my all,’ she says. ‘I still feel the warmth of the Holy Spirit in me during the conference and also the transformation that God had done in my life.’

Lineni now realises her mistakes, but she is in no way defined by what she did or who she used to be. She has seen the other side: a life of sin, inner turmoil and unhappiness; but instead of living in regret, Lineni chooses to praise God fully.

‘I praise the Lord for lifting me out of the disgusting, deep pit and filth that my life was in,’ she says, ‘and I want to testify together with Luke 5:32, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

‘I know for sure that God has saved me; because he didn’t come to the world because of the righteous, but to save the sinners like me.’

Gloriously renewed

Lineni is now fully involved in The Salvation Army and believes that God has called her to someday become an officer. Since Make Change, Lineni has become a volunteer at the Health Clinic, and she actively participates in corps events, including the music team, Bible studies and corps cadets. She also volunteers each week at Kolovai Kindergarten, Regional Headquarters and as part of the Bibles in Schools programme.

And it is not only in her time but also in her interactions with the people she comes across and those she seeks to help through her faith that shows Lineni’s true transformation. She has become a beautiful woman, shining with the true light of God, whom she seeks to please with everything she does.

‘God is able to perform the same miracle in your life as he has performed in mine,’ says Lineni. ‘I praise God that I have life! So I encourage you; give your life to the Lord, and he will strengthen you and be with you always—through good times and also bad times.

‘I give much thanks to my God and I witness to followers of Christ that I love my Lord very much—more than I love anyone in this world’.

By Cara Wood (from War Cry magazine)

The Mystery of Goodness

09 Nov 2009

Dr. Hillel Levine, an American Jew, was born ‘when the ashes of Auschwitz were still warm’. Although trained as a rabbi, Levine became a professor of sociology where he attacked a deterministic, ‘no-fault’ attitude towards history. To explain abhorrent behaviour is not to excuse it, he said; people are ultimately responsible for their actions.

Levine’s emphasis on the responsibility that comes with free will was nurtured by his religious beliefs and commitments. He believes God is all-powerful and all-good, although he admits that, for a Jew in particular, such a belief can be seen as a ‘contradiction of cosmic proportions’, the kind theologians have wrestled with in every generation.

A very precious gift

‘My response,’ explains Levine, ‘is not that God has retired to Miami Beach, or that God neglects the world, or that God has become impotent in his old age. My response is that God, as a very precious gift, gives people freedom, gives people commandments, gives people a sense of right and wrong, gives people a passion for life, all of which can be distorted or perverted, but nevertheless people are given freedom.

‘People are free to create the Auschwitzes. People are free to create the Beethoven symphonies. People are even free, like the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler and his musicians, to give magnificent performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, with its heart-stirring affirmations of the familial connections between men and women, while their people were killing millions of my people.’

Sugihara

In a period of deep depression, Levine searched for the mystery of goodness. This eventually led him to author In Search of Sugihara, the story of a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania who saved tens of thousands of Jews on the eve of World War II. When other diplomats were closing their doors and hearts to the Jews, and even as Nazi doctor Josef Mengele was selecting Jews for unspeakable medical experiments at Auschwitz, Sugihara was furiously writing exit visas to save as many Jewish families as he could.

What makes Sugihara’s story even more extraordinary is that he was a major spy for a Japanese pro-Nazi faction in Europe. But at a certain point Sugihara looked at those lined up outside his consulate every day and decided he could not let them be killed. The desire for good overwhelmed the desire for bad, leading to one of the largest mass rescues of World War II.
 
‘God endows us with [powers] for good or bad, to help others or to destroy them,’ comments Levine. He speculates, ‘If there had been a thousand Sugiharas, or a hundred, or even only 10, perhaps there would not have been a Holocaust.’

What will we do with the freedom God has given us? The invitation is to join a conspiracy of goodness in our world. 

By Christina Tyson (from War Cry magazine)

Why do Salvation Army soldiers choose not to drink alcohol?

23 Oct 2009

Salvation Army soldiers (members) adopt a lifestyle free from alcohol and tobacco. They also abstain from addictive drugs except when medically prescribed.

Alcohol, like other addictive drugs, can be harmful to individuals, families and society. Salvationists are mindful that, while certain lifestyle choices may be legally and socially acceptable, some choices may be neither helpful to the person concerned, nor to those likely to be influenced by their actions.

The Bible urges believers in Jesus to think about how their decisions and actions might impact those around them.
1 Corinthians 8:9 (NLT) says, ‘But you must be careful so that your freedom does not cause others with a weaker conscience to stumble.’ Christians are also expected to live their lives well before God and not engage in the type of wrongful behaviour that can accompany intoxication.

When someone becomes a Christian, the Holy Spirit makes his home within them. This is another reason that the body should be treated with respect and why Salvationists exercise caution about consuming potentially-harmful substances.

The Salvation Army has an effective ministry among those for whom drugs and alcohol are a problem. Because of that, it wants to offer a safe and supportive environment in its social service and worship centres so that those in recovery from addiction can avoid temptation.

Although Salvationists commit to an alcohol-free life for themselves, they don’t condemn or discriminate against those who do drink. You do not have to promise to refrain from drinking to make The Salvation Army your spiritual home.

Alcohol in our Sights

22 Oct 2009

In June 2008, Navtej Singh was shot and killed over a few dozen bottles of alcopop and the day’s takings from his Manurewa liquor store. His death and the ensuing public outrage forced the country to finally bring its sights to bear on 20 years of liberalised liquor regulation.

The Law Commission has been tasked with reviewing the sale and supply of liquor legislation in New Zealand. Preliminary suggestions for liquor form reform detailed by The Law Commission include:

• A split purchase age. The age to drink in a supervised setting such as bars and cafes would remain at 18, while the age for purchasing liquor from an off-licence would rise to 20.
• Increasing excise tax on alcohol and consideration of a minimum pricing scheme for alcohol.
• Reduced trading hours. For instance, off-licences should be closed between 10pm and 8am. On-licensed premises should be closed by 2am, or 4am if the bar operates a ‘one-way door’ policy.
• Lower legal blood-alcohol levels for drivers.
• Wider grounds upon which to refuse license applications, such as if a license is likely to have detrimental effects on the local or wider community.

Alcohol-fuelled harm

The damage caused by New Zealand’s drinking habits is considerable, costing the country upwards of $5 billion a year.

The Alcohol Advisory Council says more than three-quarters of a million adult Kiwis regularly binge drink and 125,000 New Zealanders under the age of 17 can be categorised as binge drinkers. Alcohol is a key contributor to the deaths of about 1000 New Zealanders each year.

About 22 per cent of ACC claims are alcohol related, adding up to a taxpayer bill of around $650 million a year. Half of facial fractures treated by Christchurch Hospital’s specialist Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Service between 1996 and 2005 were alcohol-related.

According to police figures, in almost a third of all recorded crime the offender has been drinking before committing the offence. In another Law Commission submission, district court judges estimated 80 per cent of defendants coming through the district courts have alcohol or other drug dependence connected with their crimes.

Sale of liquor in NZ

Alcohol Healthwatch director Rebecca Williams says New Zealanders effectively passed control of our drinking culture to the liquor industry—with disastrous results—with the Sale of Liquor Act in 1989. This legislation promised a more civilised approach to the use of alcohol, but its critics say the law has produced more carnage than responsible drinkers. ‘The community is bearing all the costs of the harm caused by alcohol while the licensees and (liquor) manufacturers take the profits,’ she says.

The Sale of Liquor Act 1989 greatly simplified the liquor-licensing system and the criteria for granting a licence.

The Act, according to its architects, would provide ‘a reasonable system of control over the sale and supply of liquor to the public with the aim of contributing to the reduction of liquor abuse so far as that can be achieved by legislative means’.

The law was further liberalised in 1999, opening up the lucrative retail beer market to supermarkets, lowered the age of purchase from 20 to 18 and introduced host-responsibility obligations on licensed premises.

In the past 20 years, drinkers have found themselves with unprecedented choice in access to alcohol. The number of liquor licences has jumped from 6295 in 1990 to 14,183 in June this year. While the total amount of pure alcohol available for consumption has risen by 25 per cent since 1988, our per-capita consumption of pure alcohol dropped following the 1989 legislative changes. However, per-capita consumption has risen nine per cent in the past decade.

Liquor commercialisation

If the aim of liberalisation of New Zealand liquor laws was to ‘civilise’ our drinking culture, it failed, according to National Addictions Centre Director Professor Doug Sellman. The result has been the ‘excessive commercialisation’ of liquor, he says.

Professor Sellman is part of Alcohol Action, a group lobbying against the excessive presence of alcohol in the community.

Alcohol Action’s ‘5+ Solution’ proposes raising alcohol prices, raising the purchase age, reducing access to liquor, cutting marketing and advertising, and putting a greater emphasis on curbing drink driving.

Professor Sellman says that while the Law Commission’s recommendations cover most of these five aims, it falls short of tackling advertising, favouring leaving regulation to the Advertising Standards Authority.

The liquor industry spends around $200,000 a day marketing alcohol to the point where, after 20 years, the heavy-drinking culture is seen by many as normal, he says, warning that New Zealanders can expect the industry ‘to fight tooth and nail’ to maintain its right to market, sponsor and advertise alcohol.

‘They know how important this is, particularly to maintain their influence over their life-blood for the future: recruiting young people into regular heavy drinking.’

Addressing alcohol misuse

Addiction treatment professionals view alcohol misuse as a continuum moving from hazardous use, to problem drinking, to mild dependence, through to full alcohol addiction.

Salvation Army Addiction Services National Manager Major Lynette Hutson says the liberalisation of liquor laws in New Zealand has contributed to growing waiting lists for places at the Bridge Programme and led to younger and younger people seeking treatment.

While outside its frame of reference, The Law Commission notes a ‘lack of policies, facilities and programmes around the country in relation to treatment of people with alcohol problems’.

Lynette suggests that funding ‘early interventions’ to intercept drinkers before they begin to graduate to addictive behaviours would be both effective and significantly cheaper than paying for the social costs associated with addiction and intensive treatment later on.

The Salvation Army speaks out

The Salvation Army Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit is coordinating a body of research aimed at informing public attitudes to alcohol; one it hopes will help shape better social policy for the future.

The unit is at work on a number of reports that will be released over coming months, with input from key Salvation Army stakeholders in the fields of addictions and community ministries. An external panel of experts is providing additional feedback. The reports will consider such topics as taxation of alcohol and problem-drinking triggers. The unit will also distribute The Salvation Army’s submission to the Law Commission issues paper.

There is a need for cultural change in the New Zealand alcohol scene,’ says the unit’s director, Major Campbell Roberts. ‘New Zealanders need to rethink their relationship with alcohol to ensure that we are not glossing over real problems in our families and communities with booze.’

By Jon Hoyle (from War Cry magazine)

Status Frenzy

20 Oct 2009

My latest Facebook status: ‘Cara Wood wants a little black and white puppy to name Raskolnikov.’ A bit random? Yes. Necessary for the hundreds of people who will see that post in the next week to know? Not a chance.

Facebook statuses are funny things. In them we tell the world what we ate for breakfast, whose party we’re going to on the weekend, what makes us incredibly angry or happy, or even who our heart does or does not belong to. We share our lives on Facebook without a single pause!

Recently I found out on Facebook that a couple I know was going through a divorce. Both of their statuses were full of sadness and anger, a feigned sense of being okay and a hurtful portrayal of what was going on in their new lives apart from each other.

You see, the problem with finding this out on Facebook was that I wasn’t even close enough to either of them to mention how sad I was to hear the news or to offer my friendship or a listening ear during this difficult time. The only thing I could be was an unwelcome bystander—an unneeded extra in a private conversation.

We seem to be so quick to put up the most intimate details of our lives on Facebook … but when was the last time you shared your most intimate thoughts with God? We fill our Facebook statuses with things as menial as puppy names to situations as painful as divorce with the push of a button yet forget to bring all of our burdens to him.

David says in Psalm 142:1-2: I cry aloud to the Lord; I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy. I pour out my complaint before him; before him I tell my trouble. Let’s strive to be as easy in our speech to God as we are on Facebook to people we hardly know; because in the end, he’s the only one that can really meet our needs.

By Cara Wood (from War Cry magazine)

The Perfect Storm

12 Oct 2009

The present global food crisis has been referred to as ‘the perfect storm’¹. Weather forecasters will often point out grouping of weather patterns that when combined together produce certain effects.

Experts in overseas aid and development argue that a sequence of events have occurred that has led to the growing food crisis; events such as the oil crisis and the global economic downturn, which has contributed to a massive hike in food prices. Blend all these actions with the realities of climate change and the resultant effect is proving to be catastrophic in many of the less financially robust communities.

Devastation and destruction

Survival at its most basic requires adequate food, clean drinking water and some sort of shelter. Take life up a notch and quality of living is closely bound up with sharing in community with others, notions of self worth, and a sense of self determination. Such feelings of wellbeing arise within a framework of living that sees needs being met through having the ability to provide for oneself and one’s family through sufficient sustainable production and income.

As Christians where do we sit as the perfect storm of starvation gathers momentum?

When travelling by plane I am always thankful for the pilot’s skill in ensuring the flight path avoids the worst of the stormy conditions. When confronted by extreme hunger and deprivation, do we opt for the same smooth course avoiding at all costs the turbulence of injustice and suffering that is the face of extreme hunger?

What does Christ call us to do? As people living with much privilege and possessions how do we rise to the challenge laid down by Isaiah to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and shelter the homeless? (Isaiah 58:7)

The storm is rising

The Rev. Kenneth Leech² speaks of a manifesto for a renewed spirituality of justice and peace. He speaks of the storm in which we find ourselves in the time we live in, which is a result of spiritual hunger and social injustice. Quoting the Rev. Martin Luther King he goes on to say, ‘the storm is rising against the privileged minority of the earth, from which there is no shelter in isolation and armament. The storm will not abate until a just distribution of the fruits of the earth enables ‘man’ everywhere to live in dignity and human decency.’

Leech argues that for the Christian community the challenge will be to once more become a pilgrim community, a community on the march, a pilgrim people committed to seeking an authentic spirituality for the struggle against injustice.

‘Our spiritual pilgrimage is not within an artificial religious world, but within the real world where coal is mined and lemon meringue pie is made, the world in which companies are taken over and homeless people die on the streets, the world in which wars are declared and millions long for peace and for justice.’³

We also live in a world where people driven to desperation take desperate risks to try to escape the relentlessness of hunger and poverty, where shop shelves are filled with food that many cannot afford to buy, and where distressed communities are taking to the streets in food riots.

Who ultimately has the responsibility to challenge such constant hunger and deprivation? Is it simply to be left to each country’s governing body?

There is a song that goes, ‘let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me’. Feeding the hungry and challenging why there are so many hungry people in a world of plenty is our mandate as a Christian community marching for justice.

A huge task and a daunting one, yet St Augustine put it so well in one of his most memorable sermons, ‘sing alleluia and keep on walking, as we move into the heart of the storm we will sing but we will keep on walking.’

By Chris Frazer (from SPPU)

¹ LiveScience, The Science of Hunger: What 1 Billion People Feel, September 2009.
² Leech, Kenneth; In the Eye of the Storm, Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd, London UK, 1992.
³ IBID, p231.

Just Early Childhood?

12 Oct 2009

The Roman Catholic Order of Jesuits claimed: ‘Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the adult person.’

The implication of this claim is that what influences and forms the development of a child up to the age of seven will significantly impact the adult they become.

Early childhood policy a priority

If we accept the importance of the first seven years of life then it seems reasonable to suggest that New Zealand’s early childhood policy is a priority for the social policy and social justice agenda of The Salvation Army in New Zealand.

Media outlets provide a daily litany of criminal offending involving mindless destruction, murders, serious assaults and domestic violence perpetrated by adult New Zealanders whose lives have gone wrong in major ways. The research on such offending reveals that it is often committed by people who experienced their own highly dysfunctional childhoods of abuse, violence and neglect.

Good early childhood environments

Early Childhood Education (ECE) cannot make up for the worst experiences in dysfunctional families or compensate for violence against children, but it can provide the nation’s children with: a love of learning, good teacher role models, self-esteem reinforcement, safety and security. And good early childhood environments can help parents learn and experience things that assist them to care for and act as good role models for their children.

Public policy in New Zealand increasingly values early childhood education with policies that provide better financial reward for early childhood teachers, free hours of entitlement for all children and support for the provision of early childhood facilities in vulnerable communities.

Pleasing as these initiatives are, the reality is that many New Zealand children in low-income areas still miss out on the benefits of early childhood education. Rates of Maori enrolment in ECE have been in decline since 2005¹, while poorer communities generally have lower participation rates than the national average².

Contributing to this dilemma is that private providers who now dominate ECE provision³ are not so attracted to low-income areas. Also contributing is the difficulty that low-income families face in transporting their children to a distant early childhood centre on a regular basis. Without access to a second car and with little public transport, transporting children to a centre that isn’t easily accessible by walking is difficult.

ECE is important for all New Zealand children, but in an environment where there is a shortage of public resource, the priority must be to focus attention on making access available to children in the most marginalised population areas and groupings.

No single policy has the chance to contribute more to New Zealand’s economic and social wellbeing than the provision of an excellent early childhood for all New Zealand children.

By Campbell Roberts (from SPPU)

¹ Into Troubled Waters, Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit 2009
² What Does It Profit Us, Social Policy and Parliamentary Unity 2008
³ Into Troubled Waters, Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit 2009

When did you last believe in Jesus?

09 Oct 2009

John’s stories about Jesus are always full of discoveries, and in the story of Jesus at the wedding in Cana (John 2:1-11), faith is expressed in surprising ways.

Have you ever thought about the effect Jesus’ miracle of turning water into wine had on his followers? Verse 11 says: ‘He thus revealed his glory, and the disciples put their faith in him.’ What? Did they not already have faith in him? They had faith enough to leave their usual occupations and follow him, so what does John mean when he writes this? Clearly we need to understand the nature of faith to see what is happening here.

When did you last believe?

Faith is always in something or someone, for something. We have faith in our car (mostly!), that it will come alive when we turn the key and take us where we need to go. We have faith that when we swipe our card at the supermarket and put in our pin, our money will be released to us.

And, as the Lord shows us more of himself and more of what he is able to do, we are challenged to step into that by faith. Our faith is in Jesus for his will and glory in the world.

Sometimes the disciples baulked at what Jesus was saying or doing. So do we. We can be slow to respond with faith to something new that he is showing or asking of us. The disciples hesitated:

• when Jesus asked them to feed a hungry crowd
• when Jesus said he was the Living Bread the disciples had to eat
• when Jesus had fed 5000 people, but the disciples then talked about forgetting to bring the bread
• when Jesus told them he was going to die and Peter rebuked him

English Bible teacher David Pawson once asked this profound question: ‘When did you last believe in Jesus?’ I think he meant: ‘When did you last have to step out in faith, trusting what Jesus has asked you to do?’

Many in Jesus’ day heard him but they did not combine hearing with faith; they did not add words or actions that showed they trusted or obeyed what he said.

It is true for us too. We can hear and yet not combine this with faith. When we listen to Jesus, our prayer always needs to be: ‘How can I express faith in what you are saying to me, Lord?’ Remember that the Lord wants to regularly ‘reveal his glory’ to you in new ways so you may put your faith in him and walk in the power or truth he is revealing.

Faith provokes miracles

Back to the wedding scene. Something else is happening here—to Mary, the mother of Jesus. It is Mary’s faith that provokes this miracle!

Imagine Mary’s life up to this moment. She has those wonderful promises of Jesus as the Saviour of the world. She has been watching his maturing into adulthood, waiting and wondering. Now he has gathered disciples. But when is he going to reveal himself as the Messiah, as the Saviour? She must have been on the edge of her seat with expectation.

Picture the scene with me. Was Mary part of the catering team? Was this a wedding in a friend’s family? She noticed that the wine had run out. Did she come to Jesus with some servants in tow? What was she expecting Jesus to do? Was she really expecting a miracle? Had the Father prompted her to ask for one?

Notice the conversation, which I feel had some long pauses:

‘They have no more wine.’
Jesus is puzzled. ‘Dear woman (madam/lady), why do you involve me? My time has not yet come.’ 
Ah … Jesus knew she was asking for some divine intervention. But he had no sense from the Father that he should be doing anything about the situation. Does he turn away? Does Mary walk away?
What is her expression? She feels sure he will do something, yet he said no: wrong time. Do they stand there looking at each other? ‘No,’ from Jesus. ‘Yes,’ says Mary’s faith.
Then she says to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’

How audacious! But this is the key. This is the statement of faith that unlocks the miracle.

Most of the miracles of Jesus were drawn out by the faith of someone involved. Not all, but most. This is the partnership we are called to: one of co-labouring with Jesus.

Open your eyes

Someone has said, ‘If you can see it (in the Spirit), you can have it.’ This is the ‘seeing’ of faith. Faith enables unseen realities that have real substance (in Heaven) to be seen and almost felt in this realm. And we can take hold of them and pull them into our earthly realm. This is the way we help to fulfil Jesus’ words: ‘Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.’

God has designed the universe to run by faith. Jesus already had the wine. Mary could see and taste that wine before it became a reality. Faith sees into the future—into the eternal—and takes hold of these realities and pulls them into the present.

The way this works for us is that we ask the Lord to open our eyes to the spiritual realities that he intends to birth in us. Then we take hold of these by faith and declare them—for as long as it takes—and bring them into now. We are called into a partnership of faith for the sake of a world in need.

What if we could see what God has for those loved ones we care about? Or those neighbours we are praying for? Can we see it? Can we see them redeemed and transformed by God’s love? What difference would seeing this make to our praying? Would there be more listening? More seeking to see? Less of our pain and concerns, and more of an enlarged, energised and excited faith? I wonder.

Faith sees, faith hears and obeys, faith rests, faith walks, faith comes boldly to the throne of grace, faith proclaims. ‘When did you last have faith in Jesus?’ And what for?

By Kath Wells (from War Cry magazine)

Meet Joy Cowley

09 Oct 2009

Joy Cowley is one of New Zealand’s most beloved children’s authors, who recently worked with Bible Society of New Zealand to produce Tārore and Her Book. But while Joy’s books have delighted both children and adults for many years, it is perhaps Joy’s heart that is most delightful. Cara Wood spoke with Joy recently to talk about Tārore and picked up these beautiful bits of wisdom…

Children and reading

Reading is something that we impose on children; it’s not natural to them—storytelling is natural. But reading is needed for their education, so if they don’t read and don’t enjoy reading, they have problems later on.

But also, reading is a way they find meaning. Whoever said that you only live once wasn’t a reader, because as often as you open a book you enter another life. Children learn so much, not just about the world and about other people, but about themselves through their reading.

For early readers, there are language skills introduced in the books, but they must be presented in a non-didactic way so that the children find them interesting. You can teach children to read and to hate reading if the lesson is dull and difficult. Pleasurable learning leads to pleasurable recall, so if the children love reading, as adults they will pass a bookshop and look in the window and have a good feeling.

Story is non-threatening instruction, isn’t it? They can see their own worth, their own value, their own beauty, and also see guidelines in it.

I encountered a child not that long ago who said to me, ‘When I read your books I feel as though I am sinking down through the pages.’ Now isn’t that nice? He’s put into words what I couldn’t have—that feeling when you are completely immersed in a book. The way children think is beautiful.

The Art of Writing

Writing is like meditation; it’s a very deep journey. I think that the important thing is to do it, to write something every day. I see people who are going to write when they retire and they want to know where they can get a publisher, and it doesn’t quite work like that. It’s very competitive, but there are some very good courses around, which can fast track the process. One of the best courses in New Zealand would be the Whitirea course for writing for children.

It’s also important to write for children as one writes for adults, but to stay within the child’s experience. Contrary to what is popularly thought, writing for children is more difficult than writing for adults. If you write for adults you write for yourself and for your peers. If you write for children you must know the specific age you are writing for and the experience.

Books should affirm; books should be a way of showing children how to love themselves.

I see bleak books written for children—no doubt you have too—and especially for teenagers. All that tells me is that the author is still carrying bleak memories from his or her own teenage years. I don’t think that adolescents who are going through bouts of depression really want to read about depressed kids. Adolescents have huge mood swings. There can be times when kids feel suicidal; there are times when life is a great blast. There are great highs and great lows … I think we cater for the highs.

Making a Point

I have written a number of books that are anti war because I feel very strongly about this. It doesn’t affect me personally, but I see the futility of war: the great pain it causes. There is so much that is untrue about war, and it perpetuates fear, and fear is the opposite of love. It’s the opposite of the reality.

Children do see things very clearly. There was one book called Yellow Overalls. It was about two kings who decided to wage war. So their wives got together and sabotaged the soldiers’ uniforms and made yellow overalls for each side. So the soldiers showed up for battle and they are all dressed the same and they didn’t know who to fight. It’s just a way of saying that we are all the same, and that if soldiers didn’t wear any uniforms at all, there would be no way to wage war.

Children are very wise. I asked children in a school in California, ‘What would you do if you were President for a year?’ And one boy wrote, ‘If I was President, I would make the people who made wars go in and fight them.’ It’s absolutely sensible, isn’t it?

Children and the Bible

I think that some caution is needed when children are given a Bible. I would give young children a Children’s Bible. I picked up most of the facts of life from the Bible, more than I should have, probably, but I was astounded to see the things that happened that were written about so explicitly.
 
I mean, it’s all experience, but somehow children miss the most important stories there that have great meaning for children. Also, there is a tendency when children are given a Bible to see it as all being as though a big hand came down from the sky and wrote it and that they don’t have to believe that this all actually happened.

I didn’t realise that when I started writing reflective poetry that I was using the couplet form of the Psalms—I would do an echo and refrain. I was steeped in the Psalms. I have always loved the Psalms, and some of the Old Testament was very important to me, the book of Ruth and the Gospels, particularly the Gospel of John. These were things I loved when I was a child and I didn’t understand. We used to have the old King James Bible and I would speak the verses to myself. I knew chunks of it by heart just because they were delicious phrases and I wanted to hold onto them.

The Beauty of Faith

I’ve had a very ordinary life, which at the same time has been very rich—lots of wonderful things have happened. But the most wonderful things are the ones I didn’t want at the time, the hardships.

As a young person I really didn’t like those messages in the Bible that seemed to be all doom and gloom … ‘Take up your cross and follow me’, ‘He who loves his life will lose it’ … I don’t think that young people are meant to enjoy those passages because they are not relevant to them. But when you get to mid life you realise the wisdom of those challenges, how important it is to let go of the ego—to die to self—because you move to a larger place.

There are little crucifixions in life, but what is resurrected is always greater than what died. And I think that was the whole truth of Jesus’ life. I believe too, now, that our little souls come here to life school to grow, to learn, and that we are tended by a very loving God. We all have little sparks of God within us, and sometimes bigger sparks have come to earth to be our guides: I can think of people whose books I’ve read who have influenced me. But then the great fire of God came to join us in Jesus: he went through everything that we could expect to go through, including death, and came through the other side to show us what it’s all about.

At this stage I would say that my faith is fairly simple. We are given all the teaching we need, all the lessons we need, and if we try to avoid a lesson it will keep on coming back at us until we take notice of it. Then God says, ‘Okay, you can have a little holiday now,’ and then the next lesson comes up. That’s the way it goes.

There is a feeling that everything is connected. You can see the hand of God in everything. And I can even see it in little threads of my life and in people around me. I can’t see the whole pattern, but I just know from those little threads that the whole tapestry is perfect.

By Cara Wood (from War Cry magazine)

Shine Your Light

06 Oct 2009

Anyone who has been down a coalmine will know what dark means. The dark of a coalmine is almost an invisible wall before you.

We humans were not designed to constantly live in total darkness, so one of God’s earliest commands was, ‘Let there be light.’ Light is best appreciated in darkness. Our neighbour has a security light on his house that comes on with any movement between our homes. This is convenient for us when arriving home after dark as our car brings on their light. If that light comes on in daylight hours we don’t even notice it.

The dictionary tells us light is ‘the natural agent that stimulates the sense of sight (or) visible electro magnetic radiation from sun, fire, lamp, etc’. But it is not the only such agent.

To ‘see the light’, for instance, is to come to an understanding of something previously obscure.

Kept in the dark

Conversely, one can be kept in the dark, something Paul remarks on in 2 Corinthians 4:4, ‘The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.’ Satan deliberately blocks the Light of the World—Jesus—from being seen to prevent the truth about God’s love and salvation from being understood.

The light that can bring understanding to a mind in the dark is no human, natural or even artificial light. This light is supernatural: the light that can make the spiritually blind see.

From time to time our daily papers carry letters decrying the existence of God. In reply there are letters asserting God’s reality. While nobody really ‘wins’ such a debate, I am always pleased to see such correspondence, for it is another way to keep God in the minds of people. If God did not exist then he would have ceased to be a subject of thought many millennia ago, I suppose!

Paul tells us that ‘God in his wisdom made it impossible for people to know him by means of their own wisdom’
(1 Corinthians 1:21). We cannot know God on our own. To know God personally requires a revelation of light: either dramatic and instantaneous like turning on a light (as Paul experienced), or a growing illumination as the dawn breaking, finally leading to acceptance.

Either way, the light needs to break through

I used to work in Buller’s Denniston coal mine. One day the rope road stopped and the rumbling of the passing boxes ceased. In the silence, which was almost as absolute as the dark, I heard a scuffing noise, yet a look up both side roads showed nothing. The trucker was almost upon me before I saw him.
 
‘Can you give me a light?’ he asked. ‘My lamp has gone out and I can’t restart it.’ ‘How did you find your way here?’ I responded. ‘I knew the rails came here, so I put my left foot on one rail and followed my foot,’ he said. He thanked me for the light and returned to his work.

You and I can be a light. The source and supply is Jesus, but the sharing is ours: ‘… let your light shine before men, that they may see …,’ says Jesus (Matthew 5:16).

By Stan Harris (from War Cry magazine)

Eseta’s Brave Heart

26 Sep 2009

Before she was born, Eseta’s father, who was a minister in the Congregational Christian Church of Samoa, was serving in a village on the island of Savai’i in Western Samoa.

When Eseta became sick at 11 months of age, her parents took her to the hospital, but after four weeks they were told to take their daughter home to die. ‘They fasted,’ Eseta recounts, ‘and coming to the end of that week, I cried out. That was the day my father said: “The Lord wants my daughter to do something for him!”’

Over the years that followed, Eseta kept returning to her father’s declaration. ‘Sometimes the load is so difficult,’ she says, ‘but I come back to what he said: There is a purpose for me.’

‘I will kill you!’

When she was eight, Eseta wasn’t feeling well and was left asleep at home while the rest of the family went to church. She awoke to a hand over her face.

A man’s voice hissed: ‘I don’t want any sound. If you tell anyone about this, I will kill you! And I will kill your parents, your brothers and your sisters.’ He then raped her, making his escape only when he heard Eseta’s mother returning to check on her daughter.

‘What he said to me stopped me from telling anyone.’ says Eseta through tears. She did not tell her story to anyone until she became a Christian at the age of 30.

Eseta's father died when she was almost 14. As the family and people from the village gathered around his bed, he told them: ‘Continue with the Word of God.’ He repeated those words twice more and then passed away.

‘Black sheep’ of the family

Eseta excelled at school and qualified as a high school teacher at 19. By then she had turned completely away from her father’s Christian values. ‘I was like a black sheep in the family, drinking and smoking,’ she says.

She avoided church. Her anger towards God was constant. ‘Why did you bring me back from the dead?’ she still demanded of him. ‘And why did you let my father die?’

At 19, Eseta was raped again. She felt she had to quickly decide what—and where—her future was to be. In August 1978 she left Samoa to join her older sister in New Zealand.

The Kiwi way of life made an immediate impact. ‘I had a good job, more money than I’d ever had, and I saw other people going to the pub, so I went with them,’ she recalls. She met her husband-to-be in a pub when he was playing in a band. Unfortunately, he was also a heavy drinker. This contributed to abuse and violence at home, with the couple separating in 2007.

The turning point

Within the space of a few years, Eseta was a passenger in two bad car crashes. After the second she woke in intensive care where a policeman told her, ‘Woman, I don’t know why you are alive!’

There were other stressors too. Eseta’s first son, Abner, was born severely autistic and didn’t speak until he was 14. After Abner’s birth she became pregnant two more times. Both boys died before they were born.

In 1987 Eseta was working five jobs: full-time at State Insurance, part-time teaching at a polytech and in three cleaning jobs. After walking away from a third car accident, when the car she was a passenger in went under a parked truck, she lost confidence and was afraid even to cross the road on her own.

For three weeks Eseta didn’t go to work and stayed in bed. As she reflected on her life she began to realise that she needed God after all. One morning she got down on her knees to pray and heard a voice say, ‘Child, come to me.’ ‘I knew it was God,’ she says. ‘I prayed for forgiveness and felt his wonderful peace and  presence.’ The next morning she felt fully restored to health and says her fear was gone.

Eseta gave up her cleaning jobs and took up an offer of part-time work at The Salvation Army second-hand shop in Newtown. She also accepted an invitation to attend church at The Salvation Army Wellington South Corps.

Eseta ducked out for a cigarette during the Sunday service only to be drawn back inside when she heard the brass band play. As she listened to the music her mind returned to the three car accidents she’d miraculously survived. She also thought about the two boys she’d conceived but lost and the rapes she’d been subjected to.

The song contained the words: A miracle! … God’s Holy Spirit came and we are not the same, for he touched us and filled us with his love.

‘As the band played, that’s what happened to me,’ says Eseta, ‘God’s Holy Spirit came and the tears ran down my eyes. I ran forward to pray and gave my heart to the Lord. And what God spoke to me, I remember. He said: “Dig into my Word.” I told him, “I don’t know much about you, God, but this is my vow: as long as I live, I will dig into your Word!”’

In 1988, Eseta gave birth to another son. ‘The doctors told me I wouldn’t be able to have another child, but I knew that God is the creator of all beings and so I asked him to help me. He gave me Abraham. Abraham, like his brother Abner, is a blessing to his mother. He is a talented musician who is studying at university and is also a committed member of The Salvation Army.

God continued to push Eseta into his Word. After becoming a Salvation Army soldier (member) in 1990, she completed Salvation Army Bible lessons by correspondence and, in 1995, graduated from Salvation Army Leadership Training (SALT) at The Salvation Army Officer Training College.

Eseta had been working at State Insurance for 24 years, since one week after her arrival in New Zealand. When her work there ended in 2001 she took the opportunity to study full time with the Victoria University School of Religious Studies and the Bible College of New Zealand (BCNZ), eventually becoming Programme Coordinator for the BCNZ Samoan Programme and a Pacific Representative to its Wellington Centre Board.

When BCNZ closed its Wellington Centre with a move to distance education, God began to reveal a big plan to Eseta. He asked her to start and lead a college to make the Bible more accessible to Pacific languages. In November 2006 the Wellington Pacific Bible College was established, with Eseta as its principal. This year the college has 52 students representing 23 different Wellington churches.

God’s Healing

Eseta is still amazed at the journey she has taken with God and the healing he has brought to her life. Reflecting on the abuse she suffered in her early years, she says, ‘It’s an awful life situation; it’s so intimate and sensitive to talk about. And it never goes away. But I have forgiven and the pain has gone—and I know God wants me to be part of his healing for other people. I thank my Lord Jesus Christ, my Saviour, for showing me that the life he lived, his death and resurrection, could create a new person in me.

‘Sometimes we have small-minded thinking,’ she continues, ‘but faith turns our vision into a great future. We have a limited mind, but God brings bigger things in our lives. That small mind says we can’t do things, but nothing is impossible to God, in God and through God! If you are saying that something is too hard, you are saying that God is too small. But you are so special to him; he wants you to re-engage with his Word and to walk with his loving Son who will help you fulfil your purpose in life.’

By Christina Tyson (from War Cry magazine)

Gendered Ageism—a myth or reality?

09 Sep 2009

It has been said that an older woman faces a double jeopardy; she is a woman and an older one!

Whilst it is a fact that aging affects everyone from birth to death, it is also a reality that many communities perceive this natural progression from weaning to wrinkles with extreme negativity. Stereotyping, prejudice and age discrimination, in our youth-focused world, is prevalent. Moreover, there is evidence to suggest ageism has a predominately feminine face. There is an old Muslim saying that goes:

When a child is born they are surrounded by 100 angels
an angel is added for every year a boy lives
an angel dies for every year a girl lives.

Gendered ageism

Is gendered ageism a modern-day phenomenon? Elizabeth Markson¹ commented that looking back in history to many centuries ago, older women were revered for their wisdom and skills; they were known as healers and midwives. ‘The term hag (hagia), she reflected, means “wise woman” and was used at this period of time as a compliment.’

So when did such a positive social construct begin to change? Such transformation, which has seen women move from being perceived as wise and valuable to wrinkly and past it, has much to do with how society began to be organised, with the formation of a predominately patriarchal structure. Markson argues that when researching Greek history and during the time of the early church, women were clearly seen as inferior and judged to be defective males.

Indeed, it was believed that a female birth was due to the father having an illness or being deemed a sinner.

Have perceptions changed?

Moving into the twenty-first century—have such negative perceptions changed? Whilst acknowledging the positive progress made that has seen women, in many parts of the world, competing on a more even playing field with their male counterparts, there is still a great deal of disparity and discrimination, especially in leadership positions where male dominion is still very much the norm. Couple this with age prejudice, and women, in many instances, remain doubly disenfranchised.

Today, both women and men live longer and, by and large, are healthier than their predecessors. Such longevity, though, brings with it challenges for both genders. Whilst by no means a homogenous group, women face a unique set of tests as they move through the decades. Many women living alone progress into older years with less financial stability than their male counterparts. Causal factors for this include a disrupted career due to raising children, being clustered in lower-paid jobs, the continuing inequality of sexes in the leadership roles, and the dissolution or death of a partnership. Couple these factors with a culture that extols feminine youthfulness and the ‘feminisation of poverty’ is set to continue rising.

What steps will be needed to help counteract this? One possible step for some women will be access to continuing employment, yet this too is fraught with difficulties.

A recent study² researched the interaction between mature female job-seekers (aged 45 years and up) and private employment agencies in the Auckland region. Two emerging themes from the resultant data highlighted the difficult relationship between female job-seekers and consultants, and the importance of ‘appearance’.

One woman respondent explained, ‘On the telephone I can sound animated and I would often get called in for jobs, and then they would see me, and not that I looked bad, but I look my age, and they instantly weren’t interested. They’re (the agencies) run by young, upwardly-mobile, stunning young women. They wanted a younger person that looked like them’.

Adopting a counter-cultural approach

According to John Macnicol³, ageism arises from our own ‘deep rooted, irrational, subconscious fears of our own aging, and our apprehension at the prospect of impending physical and mental decay.’

Gendered ageism is a fact and is prevalent throughout our society; it is portrayed through a media that spotlights youth and beauty, it is present within workplace ideologies and evident in pews where leadership cry, ‘We have a problem, our congregation is getting older!’

Our challenge then, should we choose to accept it, is to adopt a counter-cultural approach that welcomes, accepts and, indeed, rejoices in the diversity of God’s people here on our global home and seeks every opportunity to support and encourage both genders to continue to reach their full potential throughout their lives.

By Chris Frazer (from SPPU)

¹ Elizabeth Markson, Director, Gerontology Centre, Boston University.
² Massey University, ‘Gendered Ageism and Employment Agency Practises’.
³ Macnicol, John, ‘Age Discrimination, a Historical and Contemporary Analysis’.

Capturing the Master’s Design

08 Sep 2009

Phillip Bartlett always had an interest in photography. Growing up in Nelson, his family often went on day trips and tramps into the bush, sparking Phillip’s interest in the beauty and the intricacies of the New Zealand outdoors.

‘I never liked being indoors or liked the idea of sitting at an office all day,’ Phillip says. ‘I think that the landscapes we have in New Zealand are just mind blowing. To get out amongst it all is a challenge but also very rewarding.’

‘When I was getting started it was everything: the vibrancy in the marketplace, the crustiness of people, different scenes; it wasn’t so specific as it is now,’ he says. ‘When I was in Cairns, Australia, I started to see other photographers that I admired—my interest narrowed to landscapes and grew into a full-on passion.’

Capture It

Part of Phillip’s ardour with landscape photography came to fruition in ‘Capture New Zealand’ photo tours, a project he began when he returned to New Zealand in an effort to put a local flair into New Zealand photo touring.

‘What we do is provide a service to international guests to target photography no matter what their skill level. There are some people who are just holding a camera for the first time; then we also have the professionals who just want to get to the spots,’ he continues. ‘The great thing about it is that we provide a local angle, which means that we go to all the right spots at the right times: all the nooks and the crannies and the secret places.’

One aspect Phillip always teaches is getting the eye of the photographer to see things in landscape and to translate that into a photo that gives off a sense of awe.

The ‘It’ Factor

‘To get a sense of emotion into the photos, it’s all about colour and the time of day, really; it gives a warmth and vibrancy to the photo,’ Phillip says. ‘I also try to get a combination of the elements that best suits the scene. The areas I like I just keep going back to, to get a good combination—sometimes I’ll go back three times before I feel I have a combination that fits the scene the best.’

While it may be the combination that makes a photo work, Phillip finds that, with only four shots per roll of film, a complicated reloading process and a finicky framing method, it’s the elements that can also prove to be the most frustrating.

‘The most frustrating thing about photography? The weather. That would be it right there,’ says Phillip. ‘Unlike a painter or an artist, I have no control over the scene. I can predict what is going to happen by looking at the weather reports or reading the sky, but I can’t predict how it all is going to play out. I might find an interesting cloud formation in the pre-dawn and find that it has the perfect colour and then I’ll get all set up and nothing will happen; it just dies.

But it’s getting that one perfect shot, Phillip explains—even after weeks of frustration—that what he does is really all about. ‘The most rewarding thing is to get the shot, as simple as that sounds. There is a big difference between getting an okay shot and getting a great shot.

The Designer

Phillip has now developed his landscape photography and his photo tours into a professional vocation, a feat that he says would not have been possible apart from the creativity of the ultimate designer, God.

‘I find that being out there in the landscape I get to appreciate creation,’ he says. ‘I look at all the different facets and intricacies in the landscapes: the Pancake Rocks, for instance: sure, it’s the result of stratification and years of the ocean running over them again and again, but the greatest part of it is the natural effect. It has such a design element to it, such detail.

‘What gets me is that God set it all up in place knowing the results,’ he continues. ‘Areas will change appearance and things will continually change in their subtleties year after year—I continually find that I am astounded by the design element God puts into creation.’

‘People often say that I make great landscape photos,’ he says. ‘I find that a little embarrassing as all I do is frame up a suitable composition to show people what God has been up to in places they could not visit themselves. God does it all—I just turn up to see what’s going on’

By Cara Wood (from War Cry magazine)

Give Peace a Chance

08 Sep 2009

John Lennon wrote the anti-war anthem ‘Give Peace a Chance’ during his famous 1969  ‘bed-in’ honeymoon. A  reporter asked what Lennon was trying to achieve by staying in bed and he answered: ‘All we are saying is give peace a chance’.

In another song, Lennon made it clear that the world he was a part of was far from the world he longed for:
Imagine there’s no countries / It isn’t hard to do / Nothing to
kill or die for / And no religion too / Imagine all the people /
Living life in peace …

As Lennon’s violent demise proved, his pessimism was well grounded.

A call for peace-makers

Nationalism, greed for resources, and the forces of fundamental and ideological fanaticism have always been factors in world conflict. And Christians have been far from guiltless. We have, at times, failed dismally to live out Jesus’ call for his followers to be peace-makers.

But Lennon had it wrong; to do away with religions isn’t the panacea the world needs. People of faith have often been the most earnest drivers of peace and reconciliation—on small and large scales.

Jesus said: ‘God blesses those people who make peace. They will be called his children’ (Matthew 5:9, CEV). If Christians are to be a force that brings peace to families, communities, nations and the world, then our family likeness to Jesus must shine through.

At a time when other religious figures argued ‘eye for eye, and tooth for tooth’, Jesus preached—and practiced—a pacifism born of love and marked by mercy. The Apostle Paul amplified Jesus’ message: ‘Do not repay anyone evil for evil … as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge … On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink” … Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.’

Organised love

Another singer, Joan Baez, once said: ‘That’s all non-violence is—organised love.’ If we really want to give peace a chance, then we have to put love above all. And we need to be organised, intentional, about it. Love, like peace, doesn’t ‘just happen’. Sometimes it’s the hardest thing on earth, but it’s the best thing for the entire earth.

Lennon dreamed of a better, more peaceful world. But anyone can retreat to their beds to dream. Those who actually make the world a better place are those who let their longings inspire prayers and who then turn those prayers into actions. Or, as Gandhi said: ‘We must be the change we wish to see.’

By Christina Tyson (from War Cry magazine)

The Baby Boomers’ legacy

03 Sep 2009

During May 2011 the first Baby Boomers will apply for the New Zealand Superannuation. From this day and for the next 20 years the number of people who are likely to be paid the New Zealand Superannuation will grow by around 450 people per week.

On average, it takes the income taxes paid by two wage earners to pay for the Superannuation income of one retired person.¹ This means that every week from mid-2011 we will require an extra 900 earners in our economy. If New Zealand isn’t able to find these extra workers then there may be higher rates of tax, the government might have to reduce the value of Superannuation payments, or it will have to cut spending in other areas such as health, education and welfare.

The prospect of New Zealand finding these extra earners is not bright if Statistics New Zealand’s population forecasts² are to be relied upon. If the present population trends continue then New Zealand’s working-age population will, on average, grow by less than 200 people per week.

The economic impact of the baby boomer ‘demographic bulge’ has been well known for some time. The contribution-based Superannuation introduced by the third Labour government in 1974 contemplated the difficulty that the country would have in affording retirement incomes for the Baby Boomers and sought to make early provision for this. This scheme was quickly dismantled by Robert Muldoon in 1976 following his election as prime minister when he promised that a pay-as-you-go Superannuation scheme was viable.

A social favour

Pay-as-you-go Superannuation schemes require the taxpayers of today to pay taxes to support the pensions of the retirees of today. In such an arrangement there is something of an implicit social contract whereby the taxpayers of today presume, or are led to believe, that the favour will be continued by the taxpayers of tomorrow who will gladly contribute taxes to support their parents’ and grandparents’ generations in their retirement years. The problem with such an implicit social contract is that no one thought to ask those on the other side of the contract whether or not they were willing or indeed able to be part of such a contract. One reason why those on the paying side of the contract weren’t asked was because they weren’t even born when the terms of the contract were set up.

Of course the flip-side of this inter-generational social contract is that future generations get to inherit other stuff that a country with well-developed infrastructure and social systems has built up and nurtured by preceding generations.

Aside from the question over the fairness of this deal, there is a more pressing question around whether or not this deal is economically and socially sustainable.

We can't grow our way out of this problem

It is doubtful that we can rely on the cure all of economic growth to simply grow our way out of this problem. Firstly, Superannuation pensions are tied to the average wage; as the economy grows, wages will also grow and, hence, so too will the cost of Superannuation. Secondly, the world is also facing three other problems that will increasingly demand any additional economic resources that may be available. These are: the legacy of debt that is growing out of the current financial crisis, the rising cost of energy as oil becomes scarcer, and the costs associated with adjusting to the impacts of climate change.

Those left working as the Baby Boomers retire could always agree to hold up their end of the bargain and agree to pay more taxes and receive fewer services.

But New Zealand is not the only country facing the problem of an aging population. In fact, New Zealand has a slightly younger population than most western countries. As these other countries age, they will face skilled labour shortages and will look to recruit skilled workers. If the tax burden is too high and public services inadequate, many younger New Zealand workers will simply vote with their feet and leave. So who then is left to pay the taxes and do the skilled work required to grow the New Zealand economy?

Rising cost of health care

Perhaps the real sting in the economic tail of an aging population is not the increasing cost of retirement incomes or a dwindling workforce but the rising cost of health care. A recent report by the Treasury³ suggested that by 2051, 69% of our health expenditure will be on the elderly compared with around 40% today. This report warned that government would need to severely prune growth in so-called ‘non-demographic’ health spending if it is to limit public health spending to less than 12% of GDP. Currently, such spending is around 7%.

It seems inevitable that both entitlement to and the value of retirement incomes will be cut over the next five years. Most likely the age of entitlement will gradually shift up to 70 years. Also, means testing of Superannuation may be re-introduced and the indexing of pensions to wage movements may change.

These responses by themselves may not be enough as they don’t really address the underlying problem that is caused by there being too many people at the top of the age pyramid and too few workers to support them. Addressing this more fundamental problem requires a radical shift in focus away from the needs of the old and the aging and towards the needs of the young and yet-to-be-born.

Focusing on leaving a great legacy

At present we have a welfare system which allows at least one-in-six children to live in relative poverty and around a quarter of our school leavers to exit high school without a meaningful qualification. Furthermore, there is a strong link between who is poor and who does not succeed at school. Ideally, these needs and failures should be addressed as a national priority.

If we are interested in building a prosperous and just society, the real challenges don’t lie with how we fund our retirement incomes or how we provide better health services to an aging society. Rather, the compelling challenges are around how we can make sure that every child has the resources needed for them to grow up healthy and clever and how every young person has the opportunity to utilise their talents and become a contributing citizen. Meeting these challenges requires not just a significant and immediate redirection of resources, but a mind shift that begins to focus on the great legacy we might leave for our grandchildren.

By Alan Johnson (from SPPU)

¹ The average wage and salary earner pays $7000 per year in income tax while the basic Superannuation income for a married person is $14,228 per year.
² These figures are based on Statistics New Zealand’s medium fertility, medium mortality scenario with 10,000 net migration.
³ John Byrant et al, (2004), Population Aging and Government Health Expenditures 1951-2051 The Treasury—available at www.treasury.govt.nz

What’s lost is nothing to what’s found

03 Sep 2009

We recently went on a week’s R&R to Brisbane but failed to factor in the impact of four grandchildren. It became apparent that we must be aging as carrying and chasing them caused leg and arm muscles to ache like never before. Our adult family members kept talking about how good it was that we were having such ‘quality time’ with the children! But ‘time’ was what we had and so we wiped noses and bottoms and reflected on our former years as parents to our four children, who we are quite sure were more manageable—or is that our memory failing?

A time to reflect

One of the great benefits of aging is having time to reflect. Joseph Campbell the great Mythologist, made the point that if the first half of our lives is about acquisition—where we achieve education, careers, success and provide for family; the second half of life should be about divesting—we free ourselves from the clutter and the physical and external dependencies of life that can hinder the essential preparation for our transition from this world to the next.

To partake in deep reflection is to get a meaningful return on the investment of your life. Frederick Buechner, a Presbyterian Minister and writer, tells of an eleventh century monk named Godrick who, as an old man, lost almost everything. In response to his poverty he said, ‘What’s lost is nothing to what’s found. And all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup.’

Old is gold

I received an invitation by email to a Hindu Elders Conference, the theme of which is ‘Old is Gold’. The challenge is to do some deep reflection on the journey of one’s life and to mine its gold—to discern the presence of God in the places, events and people that had been part of our journey.

Walter Rauschenbusch captures the idea of discovering these God moments:

In the castle of my heart there is a little postern gate
Where, when I enter, I am in the presence of God.
In a moment, in the turning of a thought,
I am where God is.
When I meet God there, all life gains a new meaning,
Small things become great, and great things small.
Lowly and despised things are shot through with glory.
My troubles seem like pebbles on the road,
My joys seem like everlasting hills,
All my fever is gone in the great peace of God,
And I pass through the door from time to Eternity.

This reflection can be both disturbing and exciting as the vicissitudes of life have shape and determine what we’ve made of ourselves. But it is a way to discover the treasure of one’s journey and deepen one’s trust in the One from whom we came, and to whom we return. We take with us not our possessions (there are no pockets in a shroud), but who we are and the wisdom and wealth of our spirit, character and integrity.

A wealth and wisdom to respect

Contained in the life of our older citizens is a wealth and wisdom we would do well to respect. In contrast to the prevailing individualism that leaves many older people lonely and isolated, Maori and other indigenous peoples show how to care, value and listen to their sacred stories. To reflect on their remarkable journeys, to share in the story of their struggles and adversity, to ponder their faith and love, to appreciate the quality of their wisdom and being, is the best preparation for when we will be old and, hopefully, valued.

By Ian Kilgour (from SPPU)

A Choice Decision

26 Aug 2009

After growing up in Invercargill, I moved to Christchurch at 17, joined the New Zealand Army as a cook and stayed there for about six years. I wasn’t much of a team player and always lived outside the Army compound, flatting with civilians, taking drugs and getting into trouble. I eventually got out of the Army and ran massage parlours and escort agencies, getting into drugs in a big way.

I ended up in Napier and carried on the same lifestyle. I was a reasonably trusting person and wound up serving a prison sentence after being caught by an undercover policeman.

I learned my lesson, though, and never went to jail again, even though my lifestyle didn’t change. I simply kept what I was doing a more guarded secret.

Through all of this I was searching for identity. I hung out with motorcycle gangs and the like, and there were also a few destructive relationships. In fact, the same bad things happened over and over in my life.

Around this time I took up pistol shooting, representing New Zealand overseas and reaching the top of my field, but even that came to grief when I joined a motorcycle club, prospecting for the Hell’s Angels. Life got a bit complicated for the next three years, and I was constantly on methamphetamine.

An Unlikely Conversation

One day I was in a pretty deep hole. I had been charged by the police, and faced eight years in jail. I had also discovered that some of my trusted friends weren’t trustworthy at all.

Plus, to cap it all off, my wife said that she had had enough of my lifestyle and was leaving. She was a Christian who had seen God work miracles in her life, and she told me, ‘Before I go, I am going to tell you about Jesus, because you’re going to die. You’re going to be killed!’ That got my attention.

So she told me about Jesus and how he loved me. I had been to Sunday school as a child and had heard the stories, but you tend to forget them in the blurred reality of drugs and everything else that goes on.

What she said really struck me. I said, ‘Woah, yeah, that sounds good; I’ll have a piece of that.’ So I gave my heart to the Lord there and then and immediately felt a great sense of peace. I stopped taking methamphetamine, which I was using in vast quantities, and shortly afterwards I left the gang—with God’s help.

My wife and I went round Napier looking for a church to belong to. We happened to walk past The Salvation Army and thought we would try it. We felt welcome and accepted and people here helped us out a lot.

Keeping the Options Open

However, at that point I still had one foot on either side of the fence. I had been burned a number of times in my life, and so I figured I’d give God a go but keep my options open by staying involved in drugs and criminal activity.

When it was time for my court case, I really felt at peace; I was trusting God and knew he had a plan for my life—and if that included going to jail then everything would still be okay. But I was found innocent and the charges were dismissed.

Shortly after, the police turned up again, finding evidence that didn’t look good for me. I was looking at another two or three years in jail. It was at this point that I said to myself, ‘What am I doing?! Here I am, involved in drugs, coming to church and even giving my money so The Salvation Army can help people who are affected by drugs.’

Returning home from the police station I threw all the drugs away and cut up any firearms I still had left and threw them away too. And that’s been pretty much it ever since. I’ve tried to keep walking forward from there, because I realise that I have nowhere else to go: I’ve been to Hell; I’m not going back.

In court, my lawyer was pleading with the judge to accept my guilty plea, because if he didn’t I would go to jail. Right at the very last moment, when the situation seemed desperate, I spoke words from the Bible to God, reminding him, ‘God, you said that no weapon formed against me will prosper.’ The very second that I prayed that, the judge accepted my guilty plea and sentenced me to 150 hours of community work, which I ended up doing at The Salvation Army.

Beginning Restoration

But life on the farm carried on, as they say. My wife left, taking our children. The bad crops I had planted over the years had finally choked the life out of our marriage.

The next couple of years were a lonely, hard place, but I can say that the love of my church family really kept me going. That was awesome, because the only thing that I had to look forward to each night was lying on my heated bathroom floor, spending time with God.

I kept putting one foot in front of the other, believing that God would eventually come through. And he has. When he says that he will restore everything, it’s true! I’ve seen a lot of restoration and I’ve seen a lot of miracles. Even my totally trashed relationship with the mother of my first daughter has been miraculously healed, and I now see my daughter whenever I like.

I had given up praying for my ex-wife and children. I felt like I had said enough prayers and shed enough tears, so I just thought, ‘God, you can sort it out.’ One Sunday someone prayed with me and as I walked out from church I thought, ‘Well, it’s Sunday, I’ll just text and see if I can possibly see the kids’.

It turned out that God had just spoken to my ex-wife at her church and told her to ‘forgive Gavin and stop punishing him’. She asked whether I wanted to have the kids for the day!

A New Identity

So that’s God for you. He really has restored everything. I have a simple faith; I believe that God loves me and has a good plan for my life, and I thank him every day.

I have found my identity as God’s son. I believe that God created me to honour and love him and to bless others—and that’s what I enjoy doing. I help out at The Salvation Army’s Sports Adventure Life Training (SALT) in Napier, and also with the Army’s men’s restoration group. There are a lot of men that need help changing their lives and climbing out of the same hole I was in, so that is where my passion is: seeing lives restored and transformed.

God is good, and I believe that he answers prayers; I know he does! I have seen it so often. I look back on my life and I see that, even though I didn’t walk with God until 2004, he’s always been working hard out just to keep me alive.

I’ve had so many near-death experiences, and I have seen God save me over and over—I’ve got to give God all the honour and glory! I know he’s got a plan and I’d like to think that it’s a big one, but even if it’s a small plan, I’m just happy to be here, and hopefully to one day be remembered as ‘a friend of God’.

By Cara Wood (from War Cry magazine)

A Roll of Sellotape

25 Aug 2009

As a young boy, I’m told, I had an insatiable addiction to Sellotape. So much so that my parents gave me a fresh roll every birthday that would, to their horror, disappear in a matter of days. The question is asked: how could my parents allow me to sink to such a level of adhesive depravity? Blame aside, somewhere along the line it seems that I developed a desire to pull things apart, inspect them, tape them up in new ways and admire my handiwork (or, more often than not, lack thereof).

As I grew older this nature took me into the shed where odd bits of wood, sandpaper and Dad’s worn tools became an outlet for my creative conscience. After slowly realising my lack of ability with a saw, I turned to more indoor pursuits, which now finds me more at home with a pen and paper than hammer and nails.

Regardless of what it looks like for each of us, there is a simple satisfaction in situational problem solving. The room is messy; it needs a clean. The tire is flat; it needs a repair. The toy is falling apart; it needs more Sellotape.

Even in my recent trip to Tanzania my friends and I spent our days volunteering at an orphanage assessing problems and finding solutions. The eldest boy, Albert, came up to us one day and said, ‘Every day you have a new idea.’ He was intrigued by what inspired us to build a kitchen table or a simple wash basin or a washing line. It was a privilege to involve these young men in projects and show them the joy of giving something a go.

At the heart of this DIY spirit is a God who is, at his core, creative. And we, bearing his image, share in that creativity. The beauty and satisfaction of a day in the rice field exists because it has always been the Creator’s intention for us to work with our hands—to partner with him in the building of his Kingdom, on earth as it is in heaven.

The gift of grace is not a licence for laziness, but a mandate for work. ‘We are God’s workmanship,’ writes Paul in Ephesians, ‘created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.’ Moments prior Paul implores us to recognise that salvation is a gift. And as any good gift does—from a roll of Sellotape to the generous grace of God—it should motivate us for action.

By Elliot Taylor (from War Cry magazine)

Not Your Usual African Adventure

10 Aug 2009

The Africa Mercy is as tall as an eight-storey building, refitted from a rail ferry to a state-of-the-art hospital ship. From captain to cooks, surgeons to school teachers, Mercy Ships’ multi-national crew of 450 raise their own sponsorship to provide transformational health care to the poorest of the poor in West Africa.

Alison grew up in The Salvation Army, attending Tawa Corps, near Wellington. She says The Salvation Army nurtured a strong belief in taking action for justice and mercy. The Hutt Hospital nurse first encountered Mercy Ships during a public relations tour by the ship to New Zealand in 1983. ‘I definitely felt a call,’ she says. ‘Jesus said, “Make the blind see and the lame walk”, and Mercy Ships take that very literally.’

Initially working on board as an operating theatre nurse, Alison’s responsibilities now include managing the six operating theatres and their staff. ‘Treatment is of the highest standard, even if the working conditions are a little different,’ she says.

With volunteers from 35 nations coming together to use their skills for two weeks to a few years, training the multi-national teams to work together in the high-pressured but friendly atmosphere is one of Alison’s greatest challenges. This year alone the surgical team has performed more than 2520 surgical procedures.

Alison is honoured to treat those without access to health care who are struggling to survive. ‘Using my skills, what I do—to bring such massive change to the poorest and most desperate, to help those who have no hope—is an amazing privilege.’

One of those Alison has helped is 14-year-old Alfred, whom she met in Cotonou, Benin, in 2005. Alfred had a rare facial tumour that had been growing for four years. ‘He was the smallest person with the largest tumour I’d seen, yet he had the sweetest nature,’ says Alison. When Alfred arrived on board the Africa Mercy, the five-pound benign tumour enveloped his lower jaw and teeth. Its growth was causing him to slowly starve, and his eyes revealed terrible suffering.

Alfred’s father believed the tumour was the result of witchcraft. Father and son had visited more than a dozen traditional healers who poked holes in Alfred’s skin, applied pastes and prescribed animal sacrifices. A local doctor also examined Alfred but could do nothing. ‘In my heart,’ his father says, ‘I had given up.’ A local pastor told the family that Mercy Ships was in port and its medical staff could treat Alfred for free. Disillusioned by failure after failure, they reluctantly made the journey to the ship.

Alfred underwent complex surgery; his tumour was removed and a titanium plate inserted along with a bone graft to fashion a new jaw. ‘Before the surgery, people used to run away from me,’ Alfred says. ‘I didn’t go to school for four years. When I went back to school, all my friends were like “Wow!” My family and my close relatives would just say, “Yes, it’s a miracle.”’

In January 2009, Alfred, now 19, noticed swelling in his jaw. He knew Mercy Ships had just returned to Cotonou and so he returned to the ship; this time with faith. Alfred was examined and rescheduled for follow-up surgery to remove a small tumour that was forming.

Alison and the surgical team had the rare privilege of being reunited with this young man years after his initial life-saving surgery. They saw that his life had been totally turned around and that his future was full of hope.

Reflecting on her African medical service, Alison simply says: ‘It’s the most useful thing I’ve ever done.’

• For more information, go to www.mercyships.org.nz

Conquer Your Own Mountain

10 Aug 2009

On a cool, damp morning on the side of a ridge over-looking the Whakapapa River, a dozen teenagers from South Auckland dismantle the makeshift camp where they have just spent a rain-soaked night. A couple of kilometres away, another group takes turns abseiling down a 35-metre rock face overlooking the foothills of Mt Ruapehu. A third group is watching a team mate negotiate steel cables suspended five metres up in a stand of pines.

This is Winter Peak Adventure; a week-long crash course of team work, confidence-building and problem solving, hosted and run by The Salvation Army Blue Mountain Adventure Centre (BMAC).

Nestled between the banks of the Piopiotea Stream and the village of Raurimu, the centre is one of the Army’s lesser-known masterworks. With Mt Ruapehu and its ski fields at its backdoor and dozens of caving, hiking, camping, rock climbing, canoeing and kayaking sites close by, BMAC has, for the past 19 years, provided an outdoor education experience for thousands of people, from pre-schoolers upwards. They include school students, youth group members, parents, church groups, and people from a variety of Salvation Army centres.

Quality outdoor education

While it may sound simply like a good excuse to go thundering down rapids on a raft or squirm through the Okupata limestone caves, BMAC is primarily about education and changing lives for the better.

As the only Christian outdoor adventure centre in the country, BMAC’s beating heart is a team of committed Christian instructors led by Kent Nanninga and wife Leanne. Kent says continual training, updating and assessing technical skills and safety procedures, personal training and ensuring the staff’s spouses and children are content are behind the centre’s success.

BMAC has a family feel to it. Its instructors seem to have perfected a relaxed, yet no-nonsense approach to teaching, coaching and managing people of all ages. Collectively, the instructors have an array of skills ranging from specialist instructor qualifications for the full spectrum of adventure activities through to training in social and youth work, counselling and tertiary biblical studies.

Kent says this broad skill set and a well-grounded team are critical to fulfilling BMAC’s aims of developing the physical, emotional, social and spiritual facets of their charges’ lives.

‘We’re not a tourist place where we say, “Let’s go for a blast down the river,”’ Kent explains. ‘We teach people a lot about respecting themselves and others; we encourage them to solve their own problems and finish what they start.’

Sowing seeds of change

People wrestling with addictions, or who have had encounters with the police and courts, and some from sole-parent families require a delicate approach, he adds. ‘The group we’ve got here at the moment has a lot of boys without fathers,’ says Kent, ‘so we’ll go to their leaders to see what that’s about, and we’ve made a point of talking about the issues that may affect them.’

The instructors often see positive changes in the young people in the short time they attend BMAC, but Kent says the centre’s job is ‘sowing seeds’; the major changes in lives will happen progressively over time.

For some, however, their personal development is more dramatic. One recent teenage graduate from BMAC made the quantum shift from regular drug use to owning up to his problem, then committing to staying clean, removing himself from his circle of drug-using friends and making amends with his parents. ‘And he’s still on track, so it’s impressive to see that sort of change,’ says Kent.

Programmes for all needs

BMAC has developed a range of programmes for different age groups and abilities, including Winter and Summer Peak Adventures for teenagers, Father and Kids Weekends, and programmes for women’s groups. It recently completed comprehensive renovations and extensions to its 1.3 hectare complex, giving the centre an accommodation capacity for 50 people. This provides BMAC with greater scope to host retreats and team-building programmes and to extend its current range of adventure programmes.

BMAC also provides NZQA-accredited courses for those looking to become instructors or who simply want to increase their skill levels across a range of adventure activities. These training courses are offered as part of the Wellington 614 Corps Equipt training programme.

One of BMAC’s specialities is ‘The Journey’ for 16-30 year olds, a 300 km odyssey by foot, mountain bike, raft and canoe from Tongariro National Park to the Tasman Sea, via the Mokau River.

Like all of the centre’s programmes, The Journey is a ‘God-grounded’ excursion designed to develop initiative, self-confidence, perseverance and trust within the group, with a particular emphasis on leadership. Responsibilities and leadership roles are rotated among the group as the journey progresses.

BMAC instructors thoroughly train and prepare Journey participants before the trip but once underway, it’s largely up to the group. ‘We’re there as instructors to keep them safe and encourage them when they go too far off track and yes, it is okay to go off track,’ says Kent.

Top results for Project K

The centre recently designed and delivered a similar Journey experience for a group of Project K teenagers starting at National Park and finishing 290 km later in Hamilton. Project K was the brain child of Kiwi mountaineer Graeme Dingle and is designed to help 14 to 15-year-olds reach their full potential through a progression of outdoor adventure, community projects and a year of mentoring.

Karen Blue, Waikato programme director for the Foundation for Youth Development that runs Project K, says BMAC outperformed previous providers used for Project K and she expects to engage the centre in future programmes.

Her priorities in selecting an outdoor adventure provider were safety of the teens and being able to monitor the progress and morale of the group from her base in Hamilton. ‘[BMAC] certainly lived up to expectations; I can’t rave highly enough about them and I’m a pretty hard taskmaster.

‘What I saw was [the instructors] setting parameters and then encouraging the kids … to make their own decisions, and I think that allowed the kids to rise up a little and take on the leadership role themselves.’

Karen says young Kiwis rarely get taught resilience, perseverance, practical problem solving or teamwork. The skills her Project K teenagers learnt from BMAC will be taken to the community work phase of the programme, and hopefully into their adult lives.

Anchored through adventure

Back at Winter Peak, two dozen teenagers are whooping it up on Whakapapa ski field. Most are trying snowboarding or skiing for the first time and some are having their first encounter with snow.

Salvation Army youth leader Danny Wairasi has brought a small group of teenage boys down to BMAC from Tamaki for the week and says his guys have made considerable progress in a short period, in terms of their self-confidence, self-respect and respect for others.

‘The idea has been to give them first-time experiences, memories that will steel them in later life,’ says Danny. ‘Because these are first-time experiences, it’s a good time to inject positive messages, not necessarily through talking but also actions, giving them positive adult examples to follow. Yeah—I’ll be bringing another group back for Summer Peak.’

• For more information, go to www.bluemountainadventure.org.nz

By Jon Hoyle (from War Cry magazine).

Adrenaline Adventure

10 Aug 2009

I’ve never been one for roller coasters, I’ve never been downhill skiing and I don’t actually even enjoy the feel of adrenaline … unless it’s coming from the pages of a thrilling classic novel … but that’s it.

To be honest, I’m actually a bit of a scaredy-cat—though a self-acclaimed one, I might add. Put in a little bit of danger or make me go higher or faster than should be humanly possible and I’d much rather curl up on the couch, and maybe read about someone who will do those things instead.

But it’s funny, really, because isn’t the most important part of my life one massive, adrenaline-filled adventure? Doesn’t the mere admission of my Christianity entitle me to mind-blowing, positively terrifying adven-tures every step of the way?

When I signed up for this I didn’t sign up for easy, but you don’t see me begging to take it all back and return to the comfort of my couch. Even as a complete scaredy-cat when it comes to things like riding a board down a mountainside or trusting a wood and metal structure to eventually bring me back to where I started, I am positively and excitedly anchored in the adventures that I am privileged to be a part of through belief in Jesus Christ.

Though I can’t take the heart-thumping adrenaline of the regular adventure, I absolutely live off of the adrenaline of encountering the Holy Spirit, inviting others to come to Christ, and seeing the little miracles that God sprinkles through my life every day. That’s the kind of adventure I’m willing to anchor myself in.

By Cara Wood (from War Cry magazine)

Dave Wiggins: The Clean Comedy Guy

30 Jul 2009

Dave Wiggins is an American turned New Zealand resident who doesn't like Marmite, thinks New Zealand houses lack something crucial to survival: insulation, and to top it all off-he doesn't understand rugby.

So what does a guy like this have to offer Kiwi culture? Well, he’s always good for a laugh.

Remember that One Time …

Dave grew up in Maine and first encountered New Zealand at 16 years old on a missions trip.

At 19 Dave felt the pull to return to New Zealand where he began study towards a three-year degree at the Bible College of New Zealand.

‘I got the call, if you will,’ he says. ‘I really enjoyed New Zealand, and it was really a sense of adventure that brought me back.

After study Dave decided to make New Zealand his home, partly because of his new Kiwi bride—a lovely addition to his already positive feelings about New Zealand—and spent two years in youth ministry. He is currently working part time at Massey Community Church in Auckland where he serves as the Sunday morning coordinator.

The Funny Man

In his second year of study, one of his mates told Dave that he was funny and encouraged him to try stand-up comedy at the local comedy club, Classic. Dave gave it a go and it stuck.

‘Comedy is one of those things that I can look back on in my life and see that I was headed this way,’ he says.

Dave’s now been in the country for seven-and-a-half years, despite his abhorrence of Marmite, and is known as the ‘clean comedy guy’ throughout the country, a title that raises more than a few eyebrows in the New Zealand comedy world.

‘You come across a lot of clean comedians in the States,’ he says, ‘but that isn’t so much the case here—we aren’t the norm.’

Dave now not only performs a solo routine regularly at the NZ International Comedy Festival, even being nominated for the Billy T Award this year, he is also invited to speak at churches and Christian events around New Zealand.

‘It’s about expression and being spiritual,’ he says. ‘I am really passionate about the arts, so I started thinking: why can’t we have comedy in the church too?

I’m a Believer

Dave’s latest solo routine is the first to talk about his faith in an overt, though satirical way. His routine, ‘I’m a Believer’, runs for one hour and takes the mickey out of what he’s all about.

‘In the show I am satirical about Christianity and Christian culture, but try to put a positive spin on it all,’ he says. ‘I try not to just use church humour in the show. I try to stay away from just being observational about the church or how pastors are funny and things like that, which only church people will get. I try to make it so that anyone can laugh at it.’

But Dave’s church humour hasn’t always been something that people will laugh at during his secular shows.

‘In the new routine I talk about the fact that I have found in the past at comedy clubs that when I say that I am a Christian, the whole place goes quiet and it totally kills the environment,’ he says. ‘You can be offensive and you can be vulgar, but you start talking about Jesus in a positive way and people get awkward.’

Dave does admit, though, that there is a fine line between playful satire about the Christian faith and reinforcing negative views about the church in the secular world.

‘I’m really at the beginning of a journey. I use satire in my routine but try to work to break down the negative presumptions about Christianity,’ he explains. ‘I use satire, yes. But then I bring in the positive that your personal beliefs do belong somewhere.

Squeaky Clean

When Dave is asked to speak at a church or Christian event, he also always tries to book a gig at a pub or other secular venue in order to balance it all out—to continue challenging perspectives on Christianity in secular culture and on comedy in Christian culture.

‘I like to have a balance of secular and Christian. I want to really be the salt and light in mainstream comedy, but I also really enjoy the combination of entertainment and teaching that I get to do at Christian workshops.

Dave admits that his has been an interesting journey so far: one with laughter and hardship, one that deals with the cynical nature of the secular world while pressing to bring laughter into our pulpits, one that carries passion for the realisation of the Kingdom while having a laugh at the things that so often deter us from that goal. One that mixes comedy with ministry and makes the two positively inseparable.

By Cara Wood (from War Cry magazine)

Loving Bruce

27 Jul 2009

I have always loved coming up with projects for myself. Whether it’s painting or reorganising a room of the house, learning how to knit or speak a new language, or even trying vegetarianism on for size, I’ve always loved the challenge of a new project.

But out of all my previous projects, I think I have enjoyed my current one the most: I make monsters. While on vacation at the start of the year, my husband came across a monster-making kit and held it up with the words, ‘Cara, you have got to do this!’ So off I went on my latest project adventure.

I cut out bodies and sewed on mismatched eyes and crooked noses. I added arms, which I later decided were overrated. I added hearts and stars and wide-open mouths, and finally sewed the pieces together by hand. Then I named each of my endearingly hideous creatures.

The first monster I made, Bruce, was positively ridiculous. The stitching showed a shaky distrust of myself with a needle, the stuffing bulged in all the wrong places and the combination of colours … well, we won’t even go there.

But still Bruce takes his place on the shelf with wide-mouthed Frankie, abstract Spencer, four-armed Fargo and the myriad of others, because somewhere in Bruce’s creation, I became terribly fond of him.

Bruce, just like the others, has gained a special place in my heart, and to my husband’s dismay, a prominent place in our studio apartment. In creating my own little monsters I have gotten a tiny glimpse into the depth of love a creator feels for its creation—what God must feel for the little monsters he himself created.

The care that God has for his little Bruces and Spencers and Frankies and Fargos—during their creation and after—is so spectacular that it becomes unfathomable. My appreciation for Bruce’s finer abnormalities, what makes him ‘special’, doesn’t even come close.

By Cara Wood (from War Cry magazine)

Using Usury

23 Jul 2009

In Christian church circles, the somewhat old-fashioned idea of usury is revisited as an ethical question and a moral response to the poverty caused by debt. At best the very notion of usury—that it is sinful to charge interest on money you lend to another, appears quaint to most of us who have grown up in liberal democratic societies that are heavily influenced by financial markets and banks.

An economist would argue that interest is the price you pay for the use of another person’s money. Such an argument is quite sound within its own moral framework. But most of us have not been able to even understand this moral framework, let alone argue against it. This has meant that suggestions that biblical moral directives should form the basis for our financial system have been easily dismissed by opponents as unworldly at best or religious dogma at worst.

Non-identical choices

We have come to accept that the cost you pay for borrowing is the interest charged on the amount you borrow. Similarly, this interest is the reward a lender receives for lending it to someone else. In the perfectly rational world of an economist, people as would-be borrowers and lenders all understand this trade-off and the costs and benefits of their choices and make informed choices as rational utility maximising self-determining individuals.

The critical weakness in this argument is around its assumption of and definition of choice. In the world of economists, everyone has the same ability and information available to make the best choices for themselves.

When it comes to debt, people don’t have equal choices. Wealthy people have easier access to debt in part because they have assets to secure it against, in part because they are likely to wish to borrow sizeable amounts that banks and other lenders find easier to administer, and in part  because they are better connected to the financial system and the people who operate it. The poor, conversely, have few assets to offer as security. They mostly have limited income with which to pay the interest and so are only able to afford to borrow small amounts not worth the  attention of mainstream lenders.

Because the poor have few assets and low incomes, they are perceived by the financial system as being risky borrowers. This higher risk has two impacts in terms of the choices poorer people face: they have fewer lenders offering to lend to them and they will face higher interest rates for any loans that they are able to secure.

When the predatory nature of loan sharking and other fringe lending came up in discussion at The Salvation Army’s Just Action Conference in Christchurch in 2007, a participant asked the then Leader of the Opposition John Key if he would introduce tighter regulation on such lending  should he become Prime Minister. His answer was that he thought tighter regulation was unnecessary as it would limit people’s access to capital.

It is probably understandable that a wealthy man who made his fortune as a merchant banker would not understand the difference between debt and  capital, but there is an important difference, which goes to the heart of usury.

Capital

Capital, in a broad sense, is the set of assets we use to produce things. This can be the natural capital of soil fertility, the human capital of an educated workforce, social capital such as that of the social cohesion that most productive societies require, or the physical capital of plant and machinery and of buildings and physical infrastructure.

Debt is not necessarily capital and is rarely so for poor people. If someone borrows money to invest in a business in order to produce an income, then this debt can be seen as capital. If, however, people borrow money to pay for consumption, then what you get is just old-fashioned debt.

Debt in the Neighbourhood

During 2008, The Salvation Army’s community ministry in South Auckland helped 823 families with budgeting advice. These families had, on average, debts of $7000—of which less than 6% was in mortgages. The usual culprits were there: finance companies (23% of all debt) and banks and credit cards (26%); while store cards rate a mention at 7% of all the debt, not a huge one. Figuring prominently in this debt picture is the government itself, which accounts for over 20% of debts through court fines, Work & Income overpayments and IRD arrears. Noticeably, 16% of the debt is from what might be termed fringe lenders—such as pawnbrokers, mobile clothes shops and home appliance dealers. A recent and worrying development in such fringe lending is the emergence of payday loans, which are small personal loans made over short periods of time (e.g. until the next payday).

Payday loans extract very high interest—sometimes in excess of 500%—by requiring borrowers to pay fees rather than interest rates. For example, a $250 two-week loan might have a $50 application fee attached to it, which represents an interest rate of 520%.

Outside of New Zealand, payday loans and other forms of predatory lending appear to be big news as the idea that there should be legal controls on such practices has gained some political traction. In the United States, 15 states have usury laws against changing interest rates of more than 36%.¹ In Canada, the Government of British Columbia is currently introducing tighter regulation of payday lending including an interest rate cap, borrowers bail out clauses, and clearer disclosure requirements. Even in Australia some states have comprehensive controls on interest rates.²

The response in New Zealand to suggestions that debt is a major contributing factor to people’s poverty has been both tired and predictable.

If there is a problem with unaffordable or unwise debt it is the fault of the reckless borrowers who should have known better. The policy solution coming out of Wellington to problem debt is breathtakingly simple—financial literacy. The proposition here is that if people were better educated about financial things, like contracts, compound interest, and cashflows, then they would be able to make informed choices and avoid ruinous debt.³ Nothing in this argument, or in the debate and literature that supports it, mentions the predatory way in which debt is often sold to quite vulnerable people, or the exploitative nature of the debt and the way that it entraps and disables people.

Here is where we can use the concept of usury. In its modern meaning usury is about interest rates and debt terms that are exploitative, greedy and unfair. This version of usury as an idea, as well as the sentiments it provokes, are powerful, and we should be tapping this power especially within the current political climate of economic uncertainty and hostility toward money lenders.

We in New Zealand need to be talking about having usury laws. The church and its members in New Zealand should be leading this call.

By Alan Johnson (from SPPU)

¹ See Americans for Fairness in Lending website
² See Camilla Hughes’ excellent paper ‘Pay Day Lending in Tasmania’.
³ See for example Part 3 and summary point 7 p.46 of the Families Commission’s 2008
report ‘Beyond Reasonable Debt’.

The Credit-Debt Diet

22 Jul 2009

Credit-debt

The credit-debt is casting a long shadow on the futures of nations, communities and individuals.

The Obama-led America is consuming its future with a debt of US$11.4 trillion and counting. England is diminishing its future with a debt of £1 trillion 459 billion; £103 million of which is spent on debt-servicing every day. The National Budget of May forecast that in New Zealand we could be dining on a future debt-deficit diet of NZ$45 billion (25.1% of our GDP), a figure that is equivalent to $45,000 of debt for every person, or $180,000 of debt for every family of four.

What future hopes or options will not be possible because of what national leaders have already over-committed and over-spent today? Will we have to defer future funds from education, primary health care, research, social welfare, and superannuation to meet our commitments to external debt? What is going to be our priority: foreign aid, climate change, eradicating poverty or the requirements of debt servicing? What if nations start to default on debt payments? What if people start to default on credit-card debt or commercial and household properties? What if these debts never get (re)paid? What will be the economic impact of this defaulting on our shared future?

A 'glocal' threat

The crowding out of debt is a ‘glocal’ threat. It is global, local, and painfully personal. We can’t ever forget that inside these complex and faceless statistics sit families, individuals, children, neighbours.

The machinery of credit-debt depends on, and is fueled by, a perception of lack, limited opportunity and scarcity; what I/we have is not enough. Can we shift our economic practices from the fearful and isolating motivators of scarcity to a newer economics of solidarity? Can we start to live from within the alternative economic stories of enough that dominate our Scriptures? Chuck Collins of the Institute for Policy Studies comments:

The economic crisis is in part the result of an unengaged citizenry and government. What can we do together to build an economy based on building healthy communities rather than shoring up the casino economy? What public policies would make our communities more secure?

Disentangling the strangleholds

The critical issue is: what can we do together? No nation, no community and no individual should be left alone to try and disentangle the strangleholds of the incumbent credit-debt machinery. The exercising of our vote every election seems insufficient and futile, particularly given the limited choice of political parties, not to mention the degree of compromise that can happen with MMP. How can you and I become activists in our communities for the cancellation of unjust interest and debt release? Is it time we considered the ethical histories of our banks and where we deposit our hard-earned cash? Do our own banks finance and hold the portfolios of predatory loan sharks? Do we need to critically (re) examine where and how we bank?

The exercise of our dollar is a critical practice of activism; in fact, every dollar is a vote. And we have to ensure that the end of our investments is to develop community and enough for others and not simply the excesses of making more money for ourselves. Economic decisions express spiritual decisions and whatever the form of our activism it ‘must bring rich and poor together in a world structured to bring us apart. This is prophetic work’. (Lee Van Ham, 2004, Portfolio Prophets, cited at http://www.jubilie4justice.org).

By Ian Kilgour (from SPPU)

Lessons from Zac

16 Jul 2009

The revolutionary approach

I like Jesus! He challenged convention, and I’m drawn to his revolutionary approach. When he walked the earth he challenged the conventional thinking that God was best encountered in the temple. In his interactions with people he spoke of the Kingdom of God coming to them, where they were. He only ever required people to report to the temple for a medical clearance!

That’s not to say we won’t find God in the temple, but it does challenge us to think about the emphasis we place on our worship centres when we evaluate our Salvation Army mission. Every generation runs the risk of succumbing to its own conventional thinking, and I wonder if, for Salvationists, a conventional mindset has developed around measuring ‘success’ in mission as the number of people we manage to get into our halls of worship on a Sunday.

Conversation with Jesus

Zacchaeus became a friend of Jesus. Or, more correctly, Jesus befriended Zacchaeus. Jesus found him in a tree, watching spiritual developments from a distance. Zac was curious about this God-man, Jesus, and was checking him out. Jesus didn’t leave Zac in the treetops nor did he invite him to the temple on Sunday. Instead, Jesus asked to go to his place. Jesus hung out with him in his own familiar environment. The religious people disapproved, but Zac was so inspired by his conversation with Jesus over dinner that he turned his life around.

Jesus evaluates his time with Zac and concludes it was successful. His measure of success was not that Zac started to worship at the temple, but that Zac stood up and called him ‘Lord’ in his own living room (Luke 19:9).

Based on this model of mission we are offered a new way of measuring success: success is measured by the number of Salvationists who leave a Salvation Army fortress to engage in mission rather than the number of people who enter our buildings every week.

For example, I suggest success can be measured by the number of Salvationists who sacrifice well-paying careers to work in our social service centres. Currently one-third of our staff at the Christchurch Bridge Programme are active Salvationists—success! At another corps, success could be measured by the number of Salvationists engaging in street mission or signing on to support the work at their local Army addictions, supportive accommodation or community ministries centre.

Leaving familiar places

This approach to mission is uncomfortable. It asks that we Salvationists leave familiar places with familiar customs to engage in another person’s world. It asks that we risk being criticised as Jesus was for hanging out with the ‘wrong’ sort of people. It asks that we offer people the Good News of salvation in ways that make sense in their own environment. It may mean we place no requirement on them to enter our unfamiliar buildings with our unknown rules and expectations. It may mean our only expectation is that our new friends, like Zac, turn their lives around and come to call Jesus ‘Lord’ (Luke 19:8).

For me, this happens in Bridge Programme centres where, on a weekly basis, we see clients find God within the walls of our centre buildings. This is where we regularly hear people say, as Zac did, ‘I was lost, and now I’m a little bit found.’ We help them find faith that makes sense in their world of recovery. After all, dynamic discipleship requires us to go into the world—following the example that Jesus set for us.

By Sue Hay (from War Cry magazine)

‘Head to the Light’ says Kiwi Space Engineer

10 Jul 2009

In April, Lester Waugh, a 54-year-old ex-pat Kiwi who now lives in the United Kingdom, received a unique award from the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The award included a New Zealand flag that had been flown to and from the International Space Station on the Space Shuttle Discovery in 2008. The flag had travelled over nine million kilometres on 216 orbits around the earth!

Values for life

Lester grew up in Gisborne where his parents attended The Salvation Army. He and his three siblings took an active part in Salvation Army church activities.

The example of his parents, combined with his Salvation Army upbringing, set a solid foundation for Lester’s life. ‘My parents and those in the corps set a great example to follow, showing humility, loyalty, dedication, concern for others and many other virtues. Their dedication to God, their love and service to others—those characteristics give me a sense of independence of spirit and taught me the importance of having courage to do what is right,’ he says.

While Lester did well at High School, he never imagined that he would end up working in the space industry. ‘It just wasn’t a conceivable option in those days,’ he recalls, although he does have words of advice for others interested in engineering, or any area of focused endeavour. ‘Just keep working at things and grow in your knowledge and experience.’

From hobby to livelihood

He had begun dabbling in electronics as a hobby and this led to a job offer as a trainee electronics test technician. Lester studied hard, achieving a Higher National Certificate in Electronic Engineering and becoming a design engineer. His electronics aptitude extended to computers and took him to university, where he studied for a BA Honours degree in Computer Science and Psychology ahead of an MSc in Astronautics and Space Engineering.

‘I developed my skills through years of study and hard work, seeking out and taking good opportunities and working for good engineering companies,’ he says. Since then he has held various roles in equipment and system design, management, mission operations and concurrent engineering.

Does science disprove God?

To be successful in his work, Lester needs to consider how everything in a space mission will fit together, from mechanical structures right through to computer and communication systems. He applies that same inquiring mind to his reasoning about the nature of the universe, God and humanity.

And while some might argue that scientific discoveries have proved that God no longer exists, Lester disputes such reasoning. For him, the opposite is true. ‘To me, saying that science has erased God from the equation is like saying that having a theory of how trees grow means that woods or forests no longer exist. We (humanity) think that we are very clever, and we are, having achieved many amazing things—but they just pale into insignificance with the magnitude, complexity and beauty of the universe. It is truly awe inspiring.'

‘The more we learn through science, the more we are amazed about how little we know. Science doesn’t remove uncertainty as many people believe; in fact, it tends to reveal more uncertainty.’

Rather than denying or ignoring God, people need to consider how God might help them handle the ‘burgeoning array of uncertainty’ within the world. ‘A good place to start,’ Lester suggests, ‘is to accept that there is something much greater than all of us; something that many people call God, and with whom they seek a closer relationship.’

He continues, ‘I’m sure that when many people object to believing in God, they are really objecting to other people’s notions of God and what life is all about. Many hold the notion that God is the guy in the sky with the white beard, holding bolts of lightning to unleash on the first person to step out of line. That’s okay if it helps them understand certain aspects of the nature of God—we all use notions to help us understand—but as the Bible says, “we see through a glass, darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:13, KJV). Human wisdom and knowledge are limited.

Don’t ignore the spiritual

Lester believes that Christians pursuing the scientific fields of study and endeavour shouldn’t feel they have to leave their faith at the door when entering universities or scientific workplaces.

‘Science is an excellent way to try to explore parts of the nature of God and the universe. But it’s not the only way—and neither should it be. The findings of science look hard and fast, but I have to say that, in my experience, they tell such a small part of the story and are often so inadequate that we can expect science to continue to evolve. New paradigms and theories continue to supersede what we already know.’

Those who limit themselves to the pursuit of knowledge and neglect the spiritual side of life will be impoverished, he continues. ‘Both body and soul need to be sustained and developed. Ignoring your spirituality is a little bit like playing football without boots; its okay when the pitch is dry, but when it rains it’s hard to stay on your feet. And it’s painful when your feet get trodden on!

‘Life is about continually learning,’ he concludes. ‘When the going gets really tough, I’d suggest: stop dwelling on the mess you are in; instead, ask yourself “In which direction am I going?” … and always make sure you head towards the Light!’

By Christina Tyson (from War Cry magazine)

The Best Book Ever

10 Jul 2009

A page-turner from the start

I was checking out the most popular book of all time on SoYouWannaKnow.com and, no surprise here, it’s the Bible!

The site estimates the Bible’s sales at six billion copies, identifies its author as ‘God’ and comments that ‘the Bible was clearly a page-turner from the start, and it benefited from good word-of-mouth publicity, flying off the shelves’.

Maybe the writers behind this snippet of ‘so you wanna know’ trivia weren’t meaning to switch people on to The Book, but their précis of its storyline is pretty engaging all the same: The basic plot is that there’s this omnipotent deity who creates a planet and some beings to inhabit it. These beings screw everything up, he washes them out with a flood, and then they come back and screw everything up again. As a character, [God’s] a little bit inconsistent; he’s a vengeful guy one minute, then he’s answering prayers the next. But you have to give it a chance. There’s so much blood, gore and sex that we’re surprised that the thing hasn’t been banned by one of those moralistic groups that are always trying to ban something.

Give it a chance

Good thing the Bible hasn’t been banned or sanitised, which is undoubtedly due to its author being the omnipotent God. My advice is to read the book right through, though, to get a real handle on the perceived ‘inconsistency’ of God. God didn’t water down the truth about his character so we’d be more inclined to sign on with him. He’s justice, mercy and grace.

But don’t take my word for it. Read the Bible and find out for yourself.

By Christina Tyson (from War Cry magazine)

Steve’s Big Toe

25 Jun 2009

One day I went up north with some friends. We found ourselves playing in the rapids on big tyre inner tubes. Time after time, as I tried to cross the fast-flowing waves while standing on the tubes, I’d crash into the water. One of those times I stubbed my big toe and there was a little puncture hole.
I let the water wash it off and continued.

When we finished, my foot was really sore and I figured I’d sprained my ankle. Not being new to the sprained ankle experience, I iced and elevated it. The next morning my foot was blue and swollen. I iced it some more and elevated it every chance I got.

The second morning was worse, so I decided it was time to visit the doctor. The doctor commented that it was a good thing I came to see him when I did because if I left it a week longer, I’d be dead!

I laughed and said, ‘Come on, Doc, no one ever died from a sprained ankle!’ ‘That’s right,’ he replied, ‘but you don’t have a sprained ankle; you’ve got an infection, and if you’d let it spread for another week it would have contaminated your whole body and you’d have died.’ Oh!

He gave me some antibiotics and I took them. My left big toe is now as pretty as my right big toe, plus I learned some things about more than just big toes.

I was in good physical shape. I exercised regularly and played basketball. And I got a little poison in me. I tried to treat it my own way—icing and elevating. But if I’d persisted in my own treatment I’d be dead today. I needed an antibiotic to get rid of the poison; something from outside me to kill the poison within.

The poison within

We all may be morally good people, in good ethical shape, but we’ve all got some poison in us. It’s also known as sin.

Many of us treat our sin our own way: we give money to charities, help old ladies across the street, try to be ‘good people’. But that is just the moral equivalent of icing and elevating.

If we persist in our own treatment, we will die spiritually. What we need is an antibiotic, something from outside of us that will kill the sin poison within us. What we need is the blood of Jesus.

By Stephen Court (from War Cry magazine)

The Rainbow of Entitlement

15 Jun 2009

An adapted excerpt from a recent Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit Discussion Document exploring consumerism and what we feel is ‘rightly ours’.

I deserve better.
I deserve it.
I deserve more.
Now.
Whatever I want.
Whenever I want.
Whoever I want.
Entitlement.

Economics of God

The Gospel of Luke, chapter 12:1-48, contains a fatal clash of entitlement with the countering economics of God.

Jesus is working the crowds. He is smack in the middle of delivering a counter-cultural discourse on what or who is to be truly feared when a man interjects: ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.’ It’s the language of entitlement, isn’t it?

Today, if you listen carefully, you can hear this same destructive entitlement re-enacted wherever there is economic inequality, ethnic friction, and religious strife.

Jesus dodges the disruptive claim of entitlement (how can I get what I deserve?), and with a clever change in direction homes in on what matters most: how to be human, and how to be human together?

The dodging: ‘Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?’ The homing in on what is at stake: ‘Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed: life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.’

The getting and grasping of entitlement is not what it means to be human; what we ‘have’, ‘get’, own or possess is not a measure of our significance. There is more to the good life, there is more to you and me, than the incessant chasing and collecting of ‘things’.

He could have ...

Jesus pauses. The crowds look flabbergasted, and the frown on the face of the man who interrupted says everything. It’s not what they expected.

Jesus breaks the silence with a parable. It’s a clever piece of street theatre.[1] It’s a gifting of space and time. The escalating anxiety of entitlement and its insistence on gratification now can make it difficult to engage in honest self-critique. The telling of the parable lets people slow down long enough to process what is going on.

The parable starts with a line that everybody gets: ‘The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest.’ The line evokes the cultural memory of Job [2] and the commonly-held image of how God and life seem to favour the rich. It’s a hook that helps everyone enter the parable.

Everyone can name the beautiful … Everyone can name the celebrities … Everyone can name the rich … And everyone spends far too much energy, money and time comparing what we ‘have’ with the ‘lot’ of others. It’s what fuels our anxiety, it’s what inflates our expectations of entitlement, and it’s what drives the excesses of our over-consumption and our hoarding of surplus.[3] The Scriptures call it coveting.[4]

Jesus goes on to say that the man of the parable had a decision to make: ‘He thought to himself, “What shall I do?” ’

The man of the parable could have donated the extra crops to the local food bank. He could have cashed in the crops at the market and given bonuses to the employees who had laboured long days in the fields. He could have organised a community party and invited the neighbourhood to feast on what looks like the favour of God. Imagine the power of that witness! He could have gone to the local schools, and while the kids dined on the freshly harvested carrots, corn, figs and oats, the man could have passed on something of the ‘how to of effective gardening’, inspiring and teaching a new generation to dream and live generously. He could have even got creative, donned some kind of super-hero cape and in the secret of the night dropped food parcels on the doorsteps of people who had less than enough.

He could have. He didn’t.

Giving in to greed

Sadly, the man of the parable gave in to greed. He hoarded. He owned. The mantra of this man is: I, myself and what is mine. There is, in the excesses of entitlement, little room left for others. There is no energy, space or time left for neighbourliness.[5]

The pace of the parable slows: ‘I have no place to store my crops … This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ’

We’re not that different, are we? We haven’t learnt much, have we?  A cheeky atheistic marketing campaign in London carried this same sentiment: There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.

The excessive and inflated expectations of entitlement cause forgetfulness. There is a forgetting of God. There is a forgetting of how life is a gift. The excesses and luxuries we enjoy start to look a lot like ‘musts’; necessities that we ourselves have made possible. There is a forgetting of how we’re interdependent on others for most of what we ‘have’, for most of what we name ‘ours’, for most of what we possess and think we ‘own’.

Rob Bell says: ‘Moses spoke of the need to constantly tell the Exodus story, the one about rescue from slavery, “otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt.” ’

How does a person forget God? The answer we’ve seen again and again in Scriptures is that you forget God when you forget the people God cares about. Over and over God speaks of the widow, the orphan, and the refugee. This is how you remember God: you bless those who need it the most in the same way that God blessed you when you needed it most.’[6]

Jesus is solemn

The man who had everything and felt entitled to the excesses of everything is happily sitting on the sofa, drink in hand, eating some crisps and listening to some tunes, when suddenly everything goes pitch black. There’s a creaking noise. Is that a door opening?

Enter God.

The dogs, the locked gates and the security installed to preserve and protect what is ‘ours’ can’t keep God from interrupting. The man who isn’t called by a name in the parable is finally named.

‘You Fool!’ The name ‘fool’ evokes this time the memory of Nabal [7], a foolish man whose name literally meant ‘fool’. A man who insisted on getting without giving, hoarding without neighbourliness, increase without generosity, profiteering without sharing. He died trying to hold onto stuff.

The man in the parable who shares this name and these traits now shares the same fate. ‘You Fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you.’

It’s not a happy Hollywood ending. It’s not meant to be. The ‘chasing and collecting’ of entitlements is fleeting, foolish and inevitably fatal (for ourselves, others and for the planet we share). The inflated expectations and excessive consumption of entitlement can never fully frame what is essential; they can never fully satisfy what you really need; and they can never fully tell you or me what is our place, what is our significance. There is a name for that framing story; we call it the Salvation Story or the Story of God.

By Malcolm Irwin

• Read the full text of ‘The Rainbow of Entitlement' (PDF, 208KB)

Endnotes

1. Walter Brueggemann, 2006, The Word that Re-Describes the World.
2. See Job 21:7-13.
3. On http://www.globalrichlist.com, I discovered that I’m the 734,285,882 richest person on the planet. Visit the site to see how you rate.
4. See Exodus 20:17 and Romans 13:9.
5. See Isaiah 5.8-10; Walter Brueggemann, ibid.
6. Rob Bell, 2008, Jesus Wants to Save Christians (see Proverbs 30:8-9).
7. See 1 Samuel 25. Walter Brueggemann, ibid.

The Gospel is Contagious

15 Jun 2009

Limestone Island is a tiny grassy island that I could see from the top of the hill on our farm. Often I would stand and gaze at this little private paradise and dream about living there all alone with a herd of goats. This hermit lifestyle was my life’s ambition.

God, on the other hand, had a different plan! Shy, withdrawn and with low self-esteem, I could not shake off the intense internal pressure of God’s call to become a Salvation Army officer (minister).

The Bible’s words in Isaiah chapter 41 became the catalyst that changed my life’s ambition:

I took you from the ends of the earth, from its farthest corners I called you. I said, ‘You are my servant; I have chosen you and have not rejected you. So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.’

In 1977, I found myself in Singapore. For the past 32 years, this privileged ministry has been to thousands of Asians in Singapore, Malaysia and Myanmar. In each of these nations, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is wonderfully contagious.

‘Infected’ by the love of Jesus

In our modern global village, God uses us far beyond the physical boundaries where we live. God can use our local efforts to spread his message of love to other lands.

When a group of nursing sisters came to Singapore from China for a two-year exchange programme, they moved into a hostel just across the road from the Balestier Corps, where I was appointed. We ran English lessons for them, using the bilingual Chinese-English Bible. There were many challenging questions because these modern young women had grown up in Communist China and been taught atheist philosophy from birth. But by the time we had finished John’s gospel, Jesus—whose love is contagious—had won their hearts.

It helped that the Gospel message was also demonstrated by the tender loving care of our congregation. One by one, the nursing sisters believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.

The contagious love of Jesus did not stop with these women becoming Christians. Their husbands, children, parents, extended family members, friends, hospital colleagues and patients have all been ‘infected’ by Jesus’ love, and many hundreds have received Jesus as Saviour and Lord in their hometowns since that time.

Think about what could happen if you reached out to love someone in your town who is of a different culture; someone who needs to see this contagious Gospel demonstrated!

The power of Granny Lee’s testimony

I recently conducted the funeral of Granny Lee. Her husband had died when their children were young and Granny Lee was the family matriarch, greatly respected by her nine children, their spouses and families. The family had worshipped idols for many generations, and years earlier Granny Lee had booked her funeral in a Buddhist temple, as is the custom.

Six years ago, the William Booth Corps opened across the road from where one of Granny Lee’s youngest sons lives. His wife and children came to take a look at this new church in the neighbourhood. Yvonne became a Christian and the contagious love of Jesus then spread to her children, mother, brother and sister-in-law.

Yvonne’s husband played golf on Sundays while his family came to church. That was until the beginning of last year when he decided to join his family on Sunday mornings.

Granny Lee was the next to feel the love of Jesus. Although she could not understand English she began to attend worship, where the contagious Gospel overwhelmed her. She brought her youngest son to church with her every Sunday as well.

When Granny Lee was admitted to hospital, other family members returned from America and Australia. It was clear that she was in her last days and it was agreed that the eldest family member should contact the temple priest. However, through a miracle of God’s grace, I was called to the hospital instead.

Granny Lee’s youngest two sons had the courage to speak up and tell their elders how their mother had become a Christian and found great comfort and peace through Jesus. With her nine children and their spouses in that hospital room, I also shared Granny Lee’s testimony.
 
I contacted my Pastoral Care Council members and all agreed that Granny Lee should be accepted as a senior soldier (Salvation Army member) without delay. There in the hospital I enrolled her as a soldier of the William Booth Corps of The Salvation Army. Granny Lee smiled when I said ‘amen’ at the end of my prayer. A great peace immediately filled the room.

The entire family agreed that because Granny Lee was a Christian and a member of The Salvation Army they would cancel the temple arrangements and respect her new-found faith.

Granny Lee was promoted to Glory (a Salvation Army term describing the death of a soldier) that same evening. The contagious love of Jesus continued to envelop the whole family as our congregation shared in her wake over three nights, ahead of a grand and victorious funeral send off.

Other members of Granny Lee’s extended family are now reading the Bible to see what attracted their family matriarch to follow Jesus at such a late time of life.

To love Jesus and people

A week earlier I had been in a tiny village in West Malaysia for the funeral of an officer colleague’s mother. The women’s 92 descendents—children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren—were all there, as were most of the people in the village. Because the mother had became a Christian the day before she died, the family had asked me to conduct a Christian funeral service.

The great majority of the large family were Buddhists, so she was being buried as a Buddhist in an extremely grand seven-day ceremony. The monks finished their chanting at 9:30 pm on the final night. The eldest son then asked his youngest brother (my colleague, Captain Tan) to begin the Christian service at 10:30 pm. I had the opportunity to share the good news of Jesus for over an hour while the Captain translated for me.

Around midnight we joined our voices to sing ‘Amazing grace’. When we finished, the entire congregation clapped and clapped. At that moment I thought to myself, ‘Wow! What a privilege to love Jesus and to love the people that Jesus continues to bring into my life.’

Stories similar to this are being created every day in Singapore, Malaysia and Myanmar. People are hungry for the truth; they are longing for relationships that are real. With every new day there is fresh opportunity to live and share the contagious love of Jesus.

By Ruth Pascoe (from War Cry magazine)

Be a Blessing

15 Jun 2009

Open-house policy

One thing I will always appreciate about my parents is their open-house policy. No matter who needed a bed or who my brother and I brought home for Sunday dinner, Dad was always ready with a chef-quality meal and Mum with some conversation, a clean bed and a big hug.

One Sunday dinner I will always remember is a Thanksgiving dinner when my brother was away in Ghana, Africa. Mum found herself missing him during the holidays and decided to invite about 10 Africans from my university who were separated from their own families to join us for dinner.

And boy, did we have fun! After an amazing dinner, we found ourselves in the living room drumming out beats with African instruments, playing African traditional games and laughing to our hearts’ content.

Loving to bless people

What I enjoy about these times isn’t that it was a big hassle for my parents or even that it was a try-hard thing: they simply love to bless people. And that is a beautiful gift.

Mum, I am absolutely positive, got more of a kick out of giving these kids a place to be on a holiday than they did at being there. Sure, they enjoyed themselves, but Mum positively glows in these situations.

Mum and Dad would never say that they are providing these kids a charity; instead, they see themselves as blessed to have such amazing friends and to have the means to be able to share a meal with them.

If only we all saw our means to give as a beautiful blessing from the God that decided to bless us first.

By Cara Wood (from War Cry magazine)

Pray to the Lord of the Harvest

02 Jun 2009

Have you ever heard anyone pray addressing God as ‘Lord of the harvest’? Jesus, almost without exception, used the name ‘Father’ when talking about God, but when he talked to his disciples about the harvest he said: ‘Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest field’ (Matthew 9:38).

‘The Lord of the harvest’: what does this mean? The world is God’s harvest field. He is its owner. He expects a great harvest. What a revolutionary way to look at the world!

Jesus saw crowds of people harassed and helpless without him as their shepherd and his heart broke for them. He saw a plentiful harvest and few workers. So he said ‘ask’—or plead—that the Lord of the harvest will thrust out workers into his harvest field.

Do we do what Jesus asks here? I have often heard people pray for individuals who need God, ‘the lost’, but have hardly ever heard anyone pray this prayer: ‘Lord of the harvest, thrust out workers into your harvest field.’ Perhaps we could even call this Jesus’ forgotten prayer request.

In Matthew 10, after he asked them to pray this prayer, Jesus sent the 12 disciples out into the harvest field with instructions and warnings about how they will be treated. A modern paraphrase warns, ‘On your way! But be careful—this is hazardous work. You’re like lambs in a wolf pack.’ I wonder, is it dangerous to pray this prayer, because we might be the ones ‘compelled out’ into the harvest field?

'Give me the compassion of Jesus!'

We need a glimpse of the heart of Jesus in order to pray to the Lord of the harvest. We need to see the world as God’s harvest field rather than the devil’s playground.

The harvest is ready all around us—in our street, in our workplace, among our family, among our friends and acquaintances. What if we kept saying to the Holy Spirit: ‘Open my eyes; show me the ripened harvest around me. Give me the compassion of Jesus for these harried and helpless ones’? What would begin to happen—in our hearts and in our surroundings?

No harvest without faith

Do we have eyes to ‘see’ the fields that are ripe for harvesting? Or are we saying, ‘It is too hard. People are too resistant’? There will be no harvesting without faith, for this work is a supernatural work. The Lord is turning hearts towards him, and directing us to share the good news with them is the work of the Spirit. Of course, we cannot do it ourselves. But the first step into faith is ‘seeing’ the unseen. And only an ‘eye-opening’ by Jesus will bring that ability.

When that vision comes we will walk in our streets or sit at our workplace with a burning heart, alert to any direction of the Spirit to pray or care or speak for him whenever he prompts. We will be saying inside: ‘Where are you at work, Lord? What can I do to bring in the harvest?’ The adventure of the Kingdom has begun!

By Kath Wells (from War Cry magazine)

Karl Foreman: Champion for Christ

29 May 2009

Karl and his adoptive family were involved in The Salvation Army church all his life, but as far as Karl could see, church life meant little more than going through the motions of religious obligation, devoid of any love, grace or forgiveness. 

‘It seemed to me that church was all about performance, works, looking good, looking tidy, behaving; you know, stuff for salvation,’ he says. ‘It was the doing rather than the being.

The Search for an Identity

After his marriage to Christine, Karl began working at the freezing works where he also began dabbling in drugs and alcohol. Shortly thereafter he moved into forestry and logging where he found what he had been searching for.

‘Being a bushman I really got the sense of, wow, this is where I can really find belonging and acceptance; this is what I was looking for; this is my family,’ Karl says.

This identity as a bushman, and also his dependence on drugs and alcohol, continued to steer the direction of his life. His marriage began to suffer, and his few visits to the local church were blurred by hangovers and the overriding belief that Christians were too caught up in religion to care.

‘There was this one guy in the church, Ron Cairns, who would eyeball me after church and tell me he was praying for me,’ Karl said. ‘One day he took me out for a drive and told me that God was going to use me to work with the young fellas one day, and it sounded good, but it felt like he was from another planet because I just couldn’t see how God would ever follow through in the relationship.

‘This fella was a good friend who spoke visions into my life, but Ron died on Christmas Day 1998, and when he died it was like, wow, I’m alone,’ Karl remembers.

Frail Beginnings

Two days later Karl and his workmates enjoyed a joint before beginning work on a pine tree. ‘I cut the tree down, and as it was falling I realised that I had forgotten to cut an escape route, so I couldn’t get out,’ he says. ‘The log went up over a brow and then started to come back down towards me. As it did, I felt this weird sensation as the name “Jesus” forced its way out of my mouth. The log came down and missed me by millimetres.

‘That very same day another mate died because he was hit by a log,’ he continues. ‘And I was thinking, “God, was that meant for me?”

That moment didn’t change Karl’s life, but it did give him the sense that he was walking on thin ice. Karl’s marriage grew even frailer, with Karl’s anger problems resulting in verbal abuse against his family. They finally decided to move out of the city as a way to curb Karl’s drinking, but this only served to heighten his identity.

‘I had everything I really wanted: living on a farm, shooting deer, growing dope and finding a sense of who I was as a bushman,’ he says. ‘I was living my dream.’

A Champion

When Karl’s wife was pregnant with their third child she went on a family camp organised by The Salvation Army corps (church) in Napier, under the direction of Majors Ivan and Glenda Bezzant. On his way to pick Christine up and under the influence of alcohol, Karl drove his car into a ditch, which unexpectedly led to him attending one of the camp meetings.

‘At the meeting this lady got up and says, “I just had a word from the Lord, and there is a guy here that God wants to tell that he loves him and wants him to come back.” And, you know, you look around the meeting looking for the poor guy,’ says Karl. ‘Then she says, “Well, God is telling me I’ve got to say his name. And his name is Karl Foreman!”

‘When she said my name something just broke in my heart. I started crying and I felt really stink. Ivan came up to me and said, “I see a champion in you and I want to call you to it.”’

Though God spoke to Karl through this woman, it was Ivan’s challenge to call him to go beyond religion that broke through the surface.

‘I realised that salvation was a gift of grace, that we don’t deserve to be saved (Ephesians 2:8). It was like running around with a check for a million dollars; it just changed my life.’

But things didn’t instantly change for Karl. The next three months saw more tension and pain in his marriage, with his wife contemplating moving out, countless near misses on the job and a deterioration of hope. Karl began to feel the heat of the call and the need for him to make a decision, something that was finally realised one night after speaking with Ivan.

‘I put the phone down and suddenly I thought, “What is this all about?” I was always thinking about what’s best for me and my mates, because my identity at that stage had been my mates and what they thought I was,’ he says.

‘A light bulb just came on and I made a wholehearted commitment to God and said, “God, I don’t care what it costs, I’m sick of it and I’ll give you everything. I’ll go to work tomorrow and tell the guys that I’m going back to church and getting off the drugs and alcohol.”

‘So I went to work and called all of these big ugly bushmen around me and told them that I was going back to church and that I gave my heart back to God, and they all came around and were hugging me, patting me on the back and saying, “Good on ya, mate!”'

‘I love the bush. Cutting down trees is my dream job, but the passion changed,’ he says. ‘I love that, but I wanted to share the good news and hope with others. The ultimate gratification that we can feel is when we lay our life down for other people and serve them and teach them how to love.

Today, Karl is a highly influential figure in youth and men’s ministry in Napier. He has incredible vision for the future and is a man dedicated to the mission of building the Kingdom.

By Cara Wood (from War Cry magazine)

Rubber Duck Race

28 May 2009

Have you ever seen a rubber duck race? It’s a race of chance—the winner is totally random. Some ducks catch the waters’ current and flow gently and steadily to the finishing line. Others are swamped by waves, trapped behind rocks or beached on riverbanks. Sometimes, scurrilous bystanders even chuck stones at other competitors’ ducks.

Tough times

Tough times can strike in seemingly random and unfair fashions. We can follow all of life’s supposed ‘rules’ and yet still be shipwrecked by circumstances.

Most of us probably know at least one person who has been affected by the recession and who may even be downsizing to stay afloat. As finance companies have failed, people who invested through necessity, not greed, are plagued by financial worries. We hear almost daily reports of company closures and job cuts. Much of what once seemed so secure in life now seems decidedly shaky.

When I was younger, I had a naive expectation that life would be fair and just and equitable. Then, in my 30th year, my younger brother was killed by a gunman who was suffering from a severe mental illness. I remember feeling for a long time that everyone else seemed to be sailing along happily on the tranquil sea of life, while I was in danger of sinking forever beneath the waves. My disappointment with God was off the scale.

Since then I’ve met many people whose reasonable expectations of life have also been turned upside down. Some have lost loved ones. Others have battled ill health or become unemployed or seen valued relationships fallen apart. They have set their hopes and dreams on something, only to have those dreams slip out of reach.

God understands how we feel

I’ve come to understand that hardship and disappointment are part of the human condition. But I’ve also come to appreciate that these are a part of life that God understands, because, in the person of Jesus Christ, he also suffered.

While dying on the cross, Jesus uttered the words: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ Author John Dickson in the book, If I Were God, I’d End All the Pain, suggests that this is Jesus’ deliberate and agonising identification with all who have cried out ‘Why?’ to God. God intentionally entered our pain and misery. He understands how we feel in the worst storms of life.

The Bible says, ‘Don’t worry about anything but pray about everything. With thankful hearts offer up your prayers and requests to God. Then, because you belong to Christ Jesus, God will bless you with peace that no one can completely understand. And this peace will control the way you think and feel.’ (Philippians 4:6-7, CEV)

Much in life is unpredictable if not truly random, but God’s love and faithfulness is certain. God doesn’t hold himself back from us. Let’s not hold back from him just because times are hard and we’re feeling anxious.

By Christina Tyson (from War Cry magazine)

Cross-Cultural Dialogue

18 May 2009

David Claydon, author of Connecting Across Cultures identifies ways that Christians can take the good news of salvation across religious and cultural boundaries.

Grasping the essentials

Firstly, he says, it’s essential to know what we believe by developing a good grasp of the essentials of the Christian faith.

The Christian message is unique in a number of areas, in particular:

• God offers free reconciliation in Christ, enabling people to come into a personal relationship with the righteous Creator;
• We are accounted as righteous, not because of anything we can do, but solely because Christ’s work on the cross brings us true and permanent forgiveness;
• The inner work of the Holy Spirit enables us to live a transformed life that increasingly reflects the character of Christ.

We need to find ways of communicating these truths that bring out their relevance.

An embracing Gospel

It is helpful to grasp how the Gospel can meet people of different faith/cultural backgrounds. For instance, it can embrace those who are poor, fearful or lonely; it can empower those who have lost their dignity, identity or self-esteem. At the same time, the Gospel can embarrass the powerful, confronting them with the reality of God and the fact that they need humility even to be able to understand their need of God’s saving love.

Some of Claydon’s key principles for cross-cultural evangelism

Start where your hearer is: Find out your friend’s religious background. Ask questions to become well informed. The better you understand another’s worldview, ideas and hopes, as well as your own faith, the more relaxed you can be in communicating the Gospel.

Cover your conversations with prayer: The Bible says that we are like the clay water jar, which was used in every home in New Testament times (2 Corinthians 4:7). While the jar itself may be made well and have a pretty design on it, its purpose is not to be a work of art, but to hold water. In other words, what counts is not how we look or how gifted we are, but the fact that God has created us to carry his message.

God may use us, but it is only as a result of God’s work that a person will turn to Christ in repentance and faith.

Pray about who to talk to and commit yourself to pray regularly for them. Pray that the Holy Spirit will lead you to ask the right questions at the right time and to make helpful comments.

Have a spirit of humility: If we had a Christian upbringing we will never be able to comprehend how those brought up in another religious context feel about the challenge of embracing Christianity. Many Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists who have converted to Christianity have indicated that they were not unhappy about their upbringing as it prepared them for the full and final revelation of the one true God in Jesus Christ. Often they have an appreciation of the Gospel that is lacking in people brought up as Christians.

Having a spirit of humility means that we do not need to be confrontational in our methods—we can relax and allow the Christian message to speak. We must demonstrate the caring love of God in the very way we talk and listen.

By Christina Tyson (from War Cry magazine)

Life. Not Religions

15 May 2009

Hany R. Samuel is the editor of the first ever Arabic newspaper printed in New Zealand. Sofaraa, or Ambassadors, is currently a quarterly Christian publication printed in Arabic.

What gave you the idea for starting Sofaraa?

When I came to New Zealand I found that there were no Arabic publications here. Therefore I wanted to establish Arabic Media to reach people for Christ, to make him known to my nation.

The name Sofaraa is an Arabic word meaning ‘ambassadors’. It came to me when I was meditating on the following verse: ‘We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God’ (2 Corinthians 5:20). I felt God calling me to this as I am a stranger in a foreign land.

What happened next?

We put down our ideas on paper and burned the midnight oil. We discussed our ideas with friends and their feedback was very positive, both about the layout and the content. They enjoyed reading the content in classical and modern Arabic language. It has been my dream and vision since I was in Egypt and I thank God that it has come true.

What types of articles do you include in Sofaraa?

Inspiring poetry; interviews with people from different backgrounds; family matters like dealing with teenagers and how we protect our children; spiritual articles; social concerns, such as divorce, from the Bible’s point of view; apologetics, faith issues, commonly asked questions regarding the deity of Christ and the Quran’s claim of Bible distortion; news and more.

Who are you trying to reach through the publication?

Anyone who speaks the Arabic language, whatever their backgrounds: Lebanese, Jordanians, Syrian, Palestinians, Sudanese, North Africa and the Gulf countries. We try to include articles of interest to a wide spectrum of people, especially those 20-plus. We also include some English materials for young people who don’t read Arabic because they immigrated young or were born here.

Have you encountered any opposition?

In my opinion, any successful work or fresh project will encounter opposition and difficulties at the beginning whether it’s Christian or not. But I believe that any troubles we may face in life will shape our personality. There are mountains and stumbling stones, but on other side is the promise that ‘Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles’ (Isaiah 40:31).

Is there any danger for you in doing this?

Not particularly. It depends on the country and its freedom of speech, yet I steer clear of controversial topics. At the same time I do seek to follow the teachings in the Bible without compromising.

My guidance verse would have to be: ‘But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect’ (1 Peter 3:15).

What is your dream for this publication?

I would like it to be a lighthouse and a powerful message, because the written word is as powerful as a sword and can do things we cannot see, especially if it is based on the Holy Scripture. We’re aiming to distribute Sofaraa worldwide for the benefit of our Arabic speakers.

• To find out more about Sofaraa go to www.sofaraa.com

By Cara Wood (from War Cry magazine)

Mother’s Love

07 May 2009

On Mother’s Day we pause to think of the woman who gave us birth or took care of us when we were at the most helpless stage of our life. Think about it, who but a person with a mother’s heart can love a toothless, incontinent, extremely demanding being? Even better, years later they continue to love that being when they turn into a teenager!

One of my favourite passages of Scripture is Isaiah 49:15-16: ‘Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.’

This passage concerns the promised restoration of the chosen people of God. Isaiah foretold a time of discipline because of sin. God’s ‘tough love’ would allow the people to live with the consequences of their choices and actions. Next, Isaiah foretold a time when God would restore them. But because of that time of discipline the people would be so disturbed they would feel as though God had forgotten them. And so God uses the image of ‘mother’s love’ to communicate that it would be impossible for him to ‘forget’ them.

Jesus also uses the image of mother’s love to express his concern for people: ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing’ (Matthew 23:37).

The love and nurture of mothers for their offspring is a great picture-tool that God uses to help us understand how deeply he loves us. God does not have a problem with being likened to a mother. Why then is it hard for some people to think of God as a mother?

In a group devotional time we recently went through the alphabet and considered the names and nature of God. ‘A—Almighty, Awesome’; ‘B—Beloved, Beautiful’ … When I got to ‘M’ I paused to think of something new and considered ‘Mother’ (after all, when I got to ‘F’ I quickly thought ‘Father’). After a small struggle with myself a new dimension of God’s nature opened to me.

Perhaps if you try this exercise it will open a new thought about God for you as well. Think quickly of the positive traits of a mother’s love. Can you see those traits in the Person of God? Thank God for designing mothers’ love so that we could know him better. And while we’re at it, thank God for mothers.

By Debi Bell (from War Cry)
* Debi is Territorial President of Women’s Ministries

Don’t Head into a Spiritual Recession

04 May 2009

I must admit that I was one of those people watching the world financial markets every day in fear.

But then, as I read my Bible, I am reminded of verses in Mathew 6:31-34: ‘Therefore do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” … For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things [life’s basic necessities]. But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow …’ (New King James Version).

When our financial security is threatened this can have both positive and negative effects. We tend to re-evaluate the things that are most important, which is good, but we are also gripped by fear. Little thought might be given to the fact that God ‘is able’ and that he has promised to care for those who put their total faith in him.

In times of economic stress and uncertainty it is very easy to say ‘How can I afford to keep supporting God’s work financially?’

Giving is a Lifestyle

It is God who gives us the ability to produce wealth. According to the Bible, ‘your’ money—’your’ income—rightfully belongs to God. ‘“The silver is mine and the gold is mine,” declares the Lord Almighty’ (Haggai 2:8).

We need to look at giving to God as a lifestyle, an ongoing spiritual discipline, rather than as a financial burden. God is interested in the motive of our giving; he is interested in why we give not how much we give. The quality of the giver is more important than the quantity of the gift; attitude is far more important than amount.

In 2 Corinthians 8:5 we read that the believers first gave themselves to the Lord. That’s the priority! God is saying, ‘I want your life. I want all of you.’ Most Christians will live their entire life and never acquire all the blessings God has in store for them simply because they played it safe and never challenged God in the way they live out their faith.

Live by Faith

Living by faith builds even greater faith! We will come to trust God more. We will stop worrying and fretting so much about our personal finances, for we will absolutely believe the words of Jesus Christ. What wonderful peace of mind we will experience when we come to fully trust in God (see Philippians 4:6–7).

What God wants us to do is trust him—to focus on him. His desire for us is complete dependence on him so that he is first in our lives, above all else.

By Sue Winterburn (from War Cry magazine)
* Sue is a member of the Planned Giving Department at Territorial Headquarters, Wellington

Who Am I?

04 May 2009

Liz Lynch was put into state care at the age of three and never saw her five siblings or parents again. At age 12, she says she ‘exploded’, running away from home and beginning to experiment with alcohol and sex. Over the next four years Liz bounced from foster home to psychiatrist to girls’ homes and back again. She attempted suicide three times.

By the age of 16, Liz was living with a 24-year-old man who subjected her to the physical and emotional traumas of domestic violence. There was a gaping hole in her life that this ‘scared little girl’ was desperately trying to fill, not knowing who she was or where she came from. ‘Because of where I had come from, how I’d been treated, I thought I was nothing.’ Liz says.

Chance Encounter

Discovering the only identity that matters—that she is a child of God—came through a chance encounter with The Salvation Army nine years ago.

As a qualified chef, Liz had taken up a cooking job at a hostel in Silverstream. The hostel’s managers were Salvationists Barry and Joy Christoffersen.

‘After a while, Joy said, “Come to church; just sit with me and have a look”, so I turned up one day without my children,’ Liz recalls. ‘I’d never been in a church before. It was slow progress, but as I kept going I began to really listen and soak up what was being said.’

During those early days at The Salvation Army, Liz had four children, was pregnant with twin daughters and her relationship with her partner of 18 years was disintegrating. They eventually parted and Liz became the sole parent of five dependent children, with her eldest no longer living at home.

On a benefit and without extended family for support, Liz struggled for a year with high rent, rising living costs and spiralling debt. Adding to her financial stress, she crashed her uninsured car, with money still owing on it.

Behind on her rent, a fortnight before Christmas two years ago, the family was sent an eviction notice. This was the worst possible timing as it meant that Liz’s desperate attempts to secure a Housing New Zealand property made little headway.

Time to Talk

While Liz had been embarrassed to talk about her problems to members of The Salvation Army, she had developed friendships with a number of Salvationists, including the manager of The Salvation Army Community Ministries, Peter Koia.

‘I didn’t really talk to anyone at church about my problems,’ she says. ‘I thought I could get through it single-handedly, but it all came tumbling down like an avalanche.’

The wheels at Hutt City Community Ministries spun quickly. Emergency housing was organised and Salvation Army budget advisor Gay Buchanan began to work with Liz to develop a strategy to tackle her debt.

Salvation Army food bank manager Brian Flemming provided regular food parcels and encouragement, and the Community Ministries and Family Store helped out with clothing for the kids, bedding and furnishings.

Liz also started Christian counselling to help put her past into a Christian perspective, something she says has been invaluable in helping her clear the emotional decks.

The final phase of practical help was finding Liz and her children long-term accommodation through Housing New Zealand.

A New and Wonderful Life

Peter says her transformation from an ‘introverted’ newcomer to The Salvation Army to one of the church’s most committed and energetic Salvationists has been breathtaking.

Liz’s faith, devotion to prayer and tireless community work through the Army, despite a lifetime of struggle and five kids to raise, should be an inspiration to those around her,' says Peter.

Liz has been a soldier (Salvation Army member) for two years. While the changes in her life have been dramatic, she seems surprisingly unfazed. ‘For me, it’s just God’s work. I think it was God’s plan for me to come to The Salvation Army when I was ready.’
 
‘I may not know [the Bible] backwards, but if I get blown away by my past, I just need to read John 1:13—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God—and I know I am cleansed by God’s love. I know that I’m a child of God; God is my friend—my identity is renewed’

By Jon Hoyle (from War Cry magazine)

Standing Ready to Help Kiwis in Need

01 May 2009

An address delivered by Major Campbell Roberts at the 2009 Red Shield Appeal launch breakfasts for high-profile corporate supporters in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

I imagine the realities of the current economic recession impacted your business and work yesterday and are likely to do so again today. Whether it is the unavailability of finance and credit, concern over reduced customer spending, nervous shareholders, the worry of needing to make loyal staff redundant or some other issue, the economic situation is impacting your life. And it is likely those impacts are not confined to work and business activity but that they spill over into your family and personal life as you grapple with the stress of managing in such an environment.

For most New Zealanders the reality is that as the global recession starts to have a widespread impact on the New Zealand economy there is a shuffle effect on business, communities, families and individual lives.

I see this on my way to work in South Auckland when I drive past the old Mangere Bridge. Until about six months ago, there were half-a-dozen people fishing there each day. Now it’s not unusual to see 40, 50 or 60 people. What used to be a recreation is now, for some at least, about catching an essential part of the family meal

This is also obvious in the clients of the Sallies’ social services. People who often lived at the edges of sustainability in good economic times find the impact of an economic recession is severe, and in some cases potentially life-changing to their families and children.

For some, their occupation of the family home is under threat because rents and mortgages can’t be paid. For others, the kids are missing out on educational opportunities. For a few families, three meals a day is not a normal expectation any more; it’s a luxury. The slightest personal emergencies can lead to a family crisis.

We are seeking daily in our centres the impacts of global recession on the lives of people. The overtime that meant a family could meet the mortgage and feed the family is no longer available. The part-time or casual work that supplemented the benefit and helped pay the rents has stopped.

Families that have usually managed well now require help. In the last quarter of this year, 7000 families sought assistance from us—5000 of those families we had not seen before. That’s tough because these are people who are not used to seeking charity. They’re often embarrassed, angry and fearful for their future. They need more time and help from our staff because they’re encountering a system of welfare that is foreign to them.

Three statistics from our community services help paint the picture:

• Food: In the first quarter of 2008, 7319 people sought food assistance from our community services. In the first quarter of 2009 that leapt to 10517—an increase of 44%.
• Budgeting: In the first quarter of 2008, 1087 people sought budgeting assistance from our community services. In the first quarter of 2009 that increased to 1285—an increase of 18%.
• Counselling: Our counselling work has increased by a dramatic 52%.

The Salvation Army specialises in dealing with crises. It’s what we do every day, and we are determine in this economic crisis to stand alongside our fellow Kiwis as they face personal trauma and need. We are already doing this and we will continue to respond positively to the extra need caused by the economic recession.

• Addiction: Our nationwide addiction centres offer life transformation in world-class treatment programmes.
• Aged-Care Support: Our home support programme helps seniors remain in their own homes despite frailness, sickness or minimal financial resource.
• Supportive Accommodation: We provide 100,000 emergency beds each year and housing units for the elderly.
• Employment Training: When there is redundancy, unemployment or unemployability, our training programmes help people gain work skills, strengthen literacy and numeracy, and secure employment.
• Pre-school Education: Where financial security requires mums and dads to leave their pre-schoolers, we offer safe and security pre-school education centres with teachers who are excellent role models.
• Economic Hardship: In times of crisis, The Salvation Army is there to provide food, budget assistance, clothing, furniture and counselling.

Regardless of which economic commentary you listen to, it is clear that the most vulnerable in our population will require access to more of The Salvation Army’s services. We intend to be there for those Kiwis who need some one to stand with them as parts of their lives unravel. We want to support them in a way that will mean they can quickly recover and rebuild hope and a future as the global economic situation changes.

Crises are too important to waste. They offer the opportunity for individuals to discover and develop personal resources they didn’t know they had—and they offer opportunity for us collectively to offer each other new levels of support, mentoring and care.

Whether this economic crisis is short or long, we want New Zealanders to be able to rely on The Salvation Army. To do that will be a challenge because investment income is reduced, philanthropic trust income is down, and government has made it clear that no additional government funds are likely. Yet we face increased demand—and this means increased costs.

This Red Shield Appeal is vital in our provision of a reliable safety net for individuals and families for whom the economic crisis has become a personal crisis. We need every dollar we can get!

Kiwis do care and they show that by their increased generosity when the chips are down, as they are now. We need to maximise that generosity over the week of our Red Shield Appeal, and I thank you for the part you will play in that. I hope you join us in turning this economic crisis into something that is life-changing for many New Zealanders.

Do the right thing for our planet

01 May 2009

A woman once came to Mahatma Gandhi with her little boy. She asked, ‘Mahatma-ji, tell my little boy to stop eating sugar.’ ‘Come back in three days,’ said Gandhi. In three days the woman and the little boy returned and Mahatma Gandhi said to the little boy, ‘Stop eating sugar.’ The woman asked, ‘Why was it necessary for us to return only after three days for you to tell my little boy that?’ The Mahatma replied: ‘Three days ago I had not stopped eating sugar.’

There was a time when we may have thought it enough for a few others to make sacrifices to make changes to save the planet; those wacky greenies, perhaps? But now we see that self interest is out; global interest is in!

Whenever there’s a problem, it’s tempting to shift the blame from ourselves. People have tried to do that with climate change, with some saying the fundamental issue is over population rather than human consumption. Fred Pearce, an environmental consultant, combats this in ‘Consumption Dwarfs Population as Main Environmental Threat’, writing for Yale e360 (http://www.e360.yale.edu). He says it’s a ‘convenient argument’ for ‘over-consumers’ in rich countries to blame ‘over-breeders’ in distant lands for the state of the planet, when ‘by almost any measure, a small proportion of the world’s people take the majority of the world’s resources and produce the majority of its pollution’.

Owning up

It’s hard to own up to contributing to a problem by our own action or inaction. Like Gandhi in his encounter with the small boy, we need to get our own house in order first sometimes. As Jesus said (in Matthew 7:4-5), ‘Before we can tell someone else to take the speck out of their eye, we need to take the plank out of our own’.

No one’s pretending that’s easy. To change the habits of a lifetime, to reduce our personal carbon emission and call for our nation to reduce its environmental footprint requires a decided attitude shift for many of us.

Ironically, given that God clearly told us to care for the earth, Christians have not always responded well to environmental issues. Perhaps our conviction that ‘earth is not our home’ and that we’re ‘just passing through’ has made us short-sighted. If that’s so, it’s time to open our eyes—for the sake of all the world’s populations, those now living and future generations.

By Christina Tyson (from War Cry magazine)

Mentoring as Ministry

01 May 2009

For years my aunt and uncle could not have children, but through their struggle they came to be involved in ‘Big Brother, Big Sister’, a mentoring programme in the United States that pairs a child with an adult who will journey with them as a friend and provider throughout their childhood.

It was through this programme that Montray Williams came into our lives. Montray lived with his mum, grandma and older brother in inner-city Grand Rapids. It was a loving family, but with little opportunity for work and no support, Mrs Williams could not provide adequately for Montray.

So my aunt and uncle partnered with the Williamses, helped pay for Montray’s education, invited him home and away for holidays, encouraged his talent for basketball and welcomed him in as part of our family.

Part of the family

At 22 years of age, Montray is still part of our family. Though he saw his brother and many friends enter into gang violence and even serve serious jail terms, Montray held strong, committed to education and still maintains contact with my aunt, uncle, and now their little boy as well.

Though my aunt and uncle were devastated that they could not have children of their own for so many years, the opportunity to mentor Montray and walk beside him gave them the chance to share their overwhelming love and longing for a child and to experience the appreciation and love in return of Montray and his family.

This Mother’s Day you might not have children of your own to celebrate with, for whatever reason. But don’t let your love go to waste. Consider mentoring a child; consider walking with them, encouraging them to take the next steps in their lives; consider sharing your love beyond your family and watching a life change because of your influence.

By Cara Wood (from War Cry magazine)

Interpreting ANZAC

20 Apr 2009

ANZAC Day is the nearest thing we have to civil religion in this country. Every year the crowds attending ANZAC Day commemorations increase even as the number of returned service men and women decline.

Interspersed with gun salutes, speeches by dignitaries and bugle renditions of ‘The Last Post’ are prayers, Bible readings, hymns and often an exhortation or sermon. Many ANZAC Day services contain strong elements of a military church parade and most Kiwis who may not label themselves as overtly Christians accept this with grace and understanding.

The war memorials that dot the nation where these ANZAC services take place are also imbued with a spiritual significance. They are perhaps the closest thing to sacred ground we encounter in this land.

It seems that New Zealand War Memorials have become places of pilgrimage for Kiwis—places to pause, reflect and express thanks.

The religious connotations behind ANZAC go further, however, than just the memorials and services that are held at them. ANZAC provides a powerful platform of identity for what it means to be a Kiwi, and yet, ironically, it is an event commemorating military defeat and disaster.

The Gallipoli Campaign

The Gallipoli campaign exacted a terrible toll on New Zealand and Australian lives as well as British and Indian. The Turks, though victors, suffered grievous losses. It was only through a carefully organised operation that the British-led forces were able to undertake a strategic withdrawal.

But herein lies the paradox. In defeat and loss New Zealand forged a key element to her emerging identity as a nation. This is a paradox and identity Christians understand and empathise with. In large measure Christian identity lies in the desolation, failure and defeat of Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross. The Christian interacts with suffering and sacrifice, just as we also treasure the hope and life that emerged in its aftermath.

This sense of disaster leads to one final paradox and irony, which is the strong theme of forgiveness and reconciliation surrounding events at Gallipoli that emanates from former foes and enemies.

It is captured in the words of Kemal Ataturk (founder of modern Turkey and a divisional commander opposing the Kiwi forces), whose words are inscribed in the ANZAC memorial on Wellington’s south coast:

Those heroes who shed their blood and lost their lives, you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side in this country of ours. You, the mothers who sent their sons from far away countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosoms and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they become our sons as well.

This ANZAC Day, many New Zealander citizens will again undertake a pilgrimage to their local war memorial, and for some a once-in-a-lifetime experience to Gallipoli on the Dardanelles. The spiritual significance of these pilgrimages should not elude us.
 
By David Noakes (from War Cry magazine)

Don’t pass Heaven by

20 Apr 2009

I’ve always been fascinated with Cuba. Mostly because, as an American, I’m not allowed to go and wasn’t taught much about its past.

To me it’s a place of bitter memories, of a malicious past and an unfair jurisdiction, of black market cigars and hurt but beautiful people, of dictators who somehow last almost 50 years without being overthrown.

To me it’s a place of mystery and stereotypes, of obscurity and a little bit of fear.

Cuba as a place, as a body of people, never fully materialised for me. It never became a place that was on my heart, like Ghana where my sister-in-law is from or Dominican Republic where I walked beside hungry children. I have no personal connection to it.

I couldn’t hear the people crying out, I couldn’t see the vivacious children filling the sidewalks or hear real stories of real people—I wasn’t even supposed to take a picture of its countryside while flying past to the Cayman Islands. Cuba might as well have not existed for me.

Slipping past the radar

Heaven can seem like this for me at times—a place I’ve heard about and studied briefly at school, but something I sometimes feel little or no personal connection to. In light of where I am now and what I’m doing in this world, Heaven seems to slip past my radar. 

Heaven is something that becomes so easy to ignore as we carry on in our daily Christian walk: churches have stopped talking about it, and the illusiveness of golden streets, a sea of crystal and those ominous pearly gates turns a lot of us off.

But I find that the difference of Heaven from Cuba in my experience is that I long for Heaven even though I can have no earthly idea about what it will be like. Because I have a personal relationship with Jesus, and because I know that this is his dwelling place, I’m willing to take a step into the unknown, let Jesus be my personal connection to Heaven and turn my human fascination into a powerful and eternal longing to come back home.

By Cara Wood (from War Cry magazine)

Coming into God’s Presence

15 Apr 2009

The Bible talks often about God being 'with' his people or 'among' them or 'within' them. Clearly, the real, tangible presence of God can be expected where God’s people gather, whether we are a few or many.

Jesus promised before he left the earth: 'And surely I am with you always …' (Matthew 28:20). This is not an isolated experience for a few, but the inheritance we should all enjoy. 

Cultivate God’s presence

There is no place we can go where God cannot be with us (see Psalm 139:7).

It is possible to come together as God’s people and yet be very unaware that his presence, which he promises, is with us. We need to both deliberately cultivate his presence and also learn to be more aware of him with us. When we do this, God often has his own unique ways of ‘visiting’ us afresh in response to our seeking hearts.

Become aware of God’s presence

A simple way of becoming more aware of God’s loving and life-changing presence is to speak about him and to him as if he is among us in all his love and power. As we praise God and thank him, as we declare that we love him and need him, as we give testimony to who he is, something happens among us. Our awareness of him becomes more and more real.

In the Old Testament, people talked about walking into God’s presence as they moved into the Temple. There were three areas in the Temple: the outer court, the inner court and the most holy place.

The Psalms call us to ‘enter his gates with thanksgiving, and to enter his courts with praise’. Putting our focus on God and speaking or singing our thanksgiving and praise can take us closer to him. The Holy Spirit, who lives in us, responds by making us more and more aware of God. Our hearts become open to God’s love, our ears become open to his voice, our spiritual eyes become open to the glory of who he is.

If there is a heaviness or a sense of distress or fear, thanksgiving and praise can dispel the works of darkness and bring the presence of Jesus. Sometimes we may need to persist in this exercise until we are uplifted and enjoying the Lord’s presence. When God’s presence is more real, our faith rises and we can then approach God with confidence and not just express our complaints or fears.

If we each take upon ourselves the responsibility of cultivating God’s presence, there will surely be many more times when he comes very near to lift us up, bestowing his peace, pouring his love into our spirits or bringing a revelation. How much we need this, and how much he longs to come!  This is our birthright. Let us not neglect it.

By Kath Wells (from War Cry magazine)

From Tragedy to Purpose

15 Apr 2009

Richard and Cherie West began their work with Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) in 1996 in Northern Australia where they provided Aboriginal communities with mission aid.

After their work in Australia, MAF asked Richard and Cherie to move to Papua New Guinea to aid rural communities with transportation of people and goods.

There the dream that has become LatitudeSix was born.

Out from the Dust

'Richard was doing a lot of flying of coffee beans from the farmers down into Goroka for processing,' Cherie says. 'One season the farmers were not picking because they had worked out that it actually cost them to have [the harvest] processed.'

The Wests began looking into how they could help these farmers make a profit and found that the Papua New Guinea government needed the farmers to continue producing to meet their trade quota for the American coffee market. The government agreed to subsidise the flights to the processing plants, resulting in higher payouts for the farmers.

'That got us thinking, because at this time we needed to raise some support for ourselves as well,' Cherie says. 'We thought that we could sell this coffee back to our friends and family and colleagues, tell the story of MAF on the back of the pack and raise money for MAF, but also get some money back to the farmers.'

MAF began the project on a small scale, selling the coffee with 10 per cent of the profit going back to the farmers.

Coping after Tragedy

In 2005, a tragic accident changed their life plans.

A plane carrying Richard, another New Zealand pilot, Chris Hanson, and 11 passengers crashed in the Star Mountains on a routine run into Telefomin. Richard and Chris did not survive.

'That's something that I will never get my head around,' says Cherie. 'My husband died in an accident and it shouldn’t have happened. It’s not a good thing to be widowed when you're 34 years old and left with two young children.'

Initially wanting to continue mission work through partnering with Tear Fund or Opportunity International, training indigenous people to set up and run small businesses, Cherie enrolled at Massey University and completed a Graduate Diploma in Business Studies. A few months later she received a memo that served to change her direction.

'A memo came out from the MAF office here asking if there was anybody interested in running the coffee project because it had gotten too big for the office to handle,' she says. 'I thought, "Well, it was our idea to start off with and I am doing the study toward running small businesses, so I probably ought to get some experience as well." So at that point I said I'd do it.'

From there Cherie worked to rebrand the MAF project as a semi-independent small business, LatitudeSix.

The Means to Get By

Cherie claims that without her faith and trust in God’s control she would not have had the strength to carry on without Richard by her side.

She is striving to let the memories of her husband’s kindness and his tender-hearted love toward those who needed his help live on through the redeeming work of LatitudeSix.

By Cara Wood (from War Cry magazine)

To learn more or to purchase your own LatitudeSix coffee, go to www.latitudesix.org.nz

Who is Your Benefactor?

25 Mar 2009

Frustrated by my inability to find computer clipart that expressed my ideas for a Mother’s Day display, I googled. Most websites wanted payment before the clipart could be downloaded. Then I located a site that stated: ‘In gratitude to God for his grace, all clipart on this site is free! ‘Ah,’ I thought, recalling some recent biblical research, ‘the sakkar and the benefactor!’

The ‘sakkar’ was the ancient water-carrier. The sakkar could be found in the market place or on the dusty roads, plying his ware, water from a goatskin bag.

As the sakkar walked, he cried out: ‘He ya, ’atchan tahaloo yishraboo’, which translates as ‘Ho, ye thirsty ones, come ye and drink’.

A wealthy man who wanted to show his gratitude to God would sometimes buy the sakkar’s entire water supply. Then the sakkar added ‘balash’ to his spiel. The King James Version of the Bible translates this as: ‘Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye and buy … without money and without price.’ (Isaiah 55:1)

In calling the Israelites to repent, the prophet Isaiah stated that God was offering freely a necessity that usually came with a price.

Springs of Living Water

Christ took up the sakkar’s call in John 7:37: ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.’

The ancient Israelites created cisterns (Proverbs 5:15), artificial reservoirs built of rock or brick, excavated in the rock to hold rain water. These were often filled by water from the house roof, but the gutters also accumulated grime. Water from a well may contain debris that causes disease. Even flowing rivers and streams are susceptible to pollution.

But spring water is cherished anywhere. I once lived on a farm with a spring. A government analyst checked it three times before he finally confessed that the water quality was so pure that it didn’t register on his instruments. It was living unpolluted spring water that Jesus was referring to in John 7:37 and when he continued (in verse 38), ‘Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’

Jesus offered this living water to the women at the well in Samaria (John 4:10) and told her (in verses 13-14), ‘Everyone who drinks this [well] water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’

Accept God’s Gift of Life

Jesus called himself the ‘Bread of Life’ (John 6:35) but he never claimed to be the ‘Water of Life’. The living water is everlasting. This water is the eternal life that only God by his grace can give as the Supreme Sakkar (see John 3:16).

Jesus Christ warned that a time was coming when no one could work (John 9:4), meaning that this grace from God cannot be received once God’s time of final judgement has arrived (Hebrews 9:27).

When Isaiah expanded his metaphor about the sakkar, he also implied that such a time was coming: Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. (Isaiah 55:6-7)

Yes, God’s grace is offered, but the thirsty must pay a price for it unless someone else intervenes. Christ has paid the full price for everlasting life so that it can be freely available for all. (Ephesians 2:8)

Christ paid the only price that God could accept under Jewish Law, the offering of a sinless Saviour: ‘God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God’ (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus also promised that those who hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled. (Matthew 5:6)

Are you thirsting for a more satisfying life? Seek the Supreme Sakkar and let him become your benefactor.

By Mervyn L.Layt (from War Cry magazine)

Form & Function

25 Mar 2009

My family is living in a state of emergency. After years of living the high life with two bathrooms, we are reduced to existing with one.

Bathroom Boot-camp

I know some of you will be prescribing a Bathroom Boot-Camp for us. ‘Toughen up,’ I hear you mutter. ‘In the good old days, one bathroom was a luxury!’ And so it was. I well remember the mystique surrounding the trek outside down the path and round the bend to visit my grandmother’s water closet. I also remember the shivers I felt when my mind refused to forget the bedpan tucked beneath my bed on a cold, South Canterbury night. Some of my most earnest prayers were centred on keeping that bed from falling in!

Speaking of falling in … this whole bathroom drama began one evening when my husband stood at the dinner table, felt a drip on his head and thought the sky was falling. Closer inspection of the ceiling led to an emergency manoeuvre with a broom handle straight through finely-painted gib board. Several litres of water gushed into neatly positioned buckets on the dining room table. The bath pipes had given up, sprung a leak and necessitated a complete refit of our conveniences.

Strange as it may seem, the refit process began at the library. Looking at the history and development of bathrooms can be quite absorbing once you settle into one of those comfy chairs and allow silence to tuck around you. I learned an important life lesson—function remains the same, but form is the gateway for the creativity of each generation to connect with its contemporaries.

Clouding our 'reality compass'

There is a curious tension associated with looking at history. Nostalgia can cloud our ‘reality compass’. When I think of my grandmother’s outside loo, I find myself smiling and longing to revisit those good old days. But it’s not the water closet that I want to reclaim—that would be idiotic. It’s the people, the emotions and the sense of belonging somewhere that brings that warm glow.

Water closets were the height of human creativity and genius. Chamber pots were absolute craftsmanship. Now an indoor, self closing, dual flush S-pan is.

In my efforts to redecorate our new bathroom I’ve looked at heritage tiles, claw foot baths and porcelain sinks. The essential functions of a bathroom are transferable from one generation to the next, but the form that suits my family is different to that of my grandmother. The glorious thing about heritage is that each generation has the opportunity to build on the lessons of the past without being held captive or confined to it.

Heritage must not become the object of our worship

Heritage is a gift. It underlines the notion of history moving in a linear direction. It highlights the concepts of foundations, batons being passed on and active participation in extending God’s Kingdom from age to age. However, we would be wise to note that even good things have the potential to cause us to stumble. Our heritage must not become the object of our worship.

It is the God of our heritage whom we are called to worship. Our heritage will not save us—Jesus does. Our history will not sustain us—the Holy Spirit will. Nostalgic reminiscing about ‘old times’ will not advance our mission, whereas lives totally surrendered to the Lordship of Christ will!

By Coralie Bridle (from War Cry magazine)

Tune Your Dial - Christian Broadcasting Association

23 Mar 2009

Phil Guyan, manager and producer of the Christian Broadcasting Association (CBA) talks about CBA’s upcoming Easter programme and the mission to communicate the essentials of the Christian faith to those who have never understood.

How did you get involved with CBA?

CBA had gone into liquidation, and I was working as the youth pastor at the church where the original founder happened to go. When CBA went under he offered me the job of doing a feasibility study to see whether or not it might be worth setting up again. I spent several weeks meeting with different people and phoning previous supporters to see if there was a market for the programmes and support for the mission. After about six or seven weeks we felt that there was a market and probably enough support to at least get it going again with one person working part time, which turned out to be me.

What programmes does CBA offer?

We do a daily programme called ‘Scrubcutters’, usually five a week, and have now done 3000 in the last 12 years. Each piece is heard by over 180,000 people at primetime on NewstalkZB and is 90 seconds long.

We have two weekly programmes—one is called ‘Real Life with John Cowan’. That’s been going for five years and has been the top-rating show for its time slot that whole time. The next show is only about two weeks old. It’s a three-hour show called ‘Sunday, Sunday with Pat and Petra’ from 9 pm-midnight.

We also have Christmas and Easter programmes [when] we take over all of NewstalkZB and also broadcast on Radio Sport for the entire day. We have about 250,000 listeners at Christmas and about 300,000 listeners at Easter. Finally, we do radio shorts for all of the radio stations in New Zealand for Waitangi Day, St Patrick’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Anzac Day.

Who is your target market? How do you cater for them?

One of the questions NewstalkZB asks on its survey is: do you regard religion or spirituality as a primary interest in your life? Between 86 and 91 per cent of people responding said no. The mission of CBA is to communicate the essentials of the Christian faith to those who have never understood. So, if more than eight out of 10 people that listen to NewsTalk are not Christians, then that’s why we’re there.

Our programmes entertain, they inform, they challenge; some of them are quite emotive. Our first priority is to create good radio. If it’s not good radio, then we don’t get the listeners. The second priority is to communicate faith. We have to relate with the audience, and then we can communicate a faith that’s real and compelling. Easter and Christmas are very overt in terms of the Christian content. ‘Real Life’ is sometimes overt and sometimes not at all.

How do you put faith across in a compelling way?

It has to be intelligent; we can't assume the audience knows what we’re talking about. We have to presume a complete lack of knowledge of the Bible. We can’t say, ‘Well, it says in the Bible …’ that’s about as useful as telling somebody what it says in the Koran or the Book of Mormon.

I think personal testimony is also a strong way of doing it. Another thing you can do, is say, ‘God is like this or God is like that’. Then people can come on board with that discussion without even questioning whether or not God is real in the first place. Another thing is to keep it positive and non-confrontational. It’s more important to win the heart of the listener than it is to win an argument. They have to like you before they’ll listen to you.

Can you tell us a bit about this year’s Easter programme?

Twelve hours is divided up into four three-hour shows. 6 am-9 am will be hosted by Ian Grant, 9 am-12 pm will be hosted by John Cowan, 12 pm-3 pm will be hosted by Petra Bagust and 3 pm-6 pm will be hosted by Tim Sisarich and John Cooney.

We’ll have some fun elements. We're going to go out and approach young people and say, ‘I’m going to give you two quotes, one is from Jesus and one is not. If you can pick the one that is from Jesus, we will give you an Easter Egg.’ That way, whether they get it right or wrong doesn’t matter; you’re getting the teachings of Jesus out there in a fun way. We’re just trying to make people think, ‘Oh yeah, that’s right, Easter’s got something to do with Jesus.’

In the past, we have had world-renowned Christian thinkers be part of the show. People will phone up and say, ‘Look, that stuff is such a load of rot,’ and then Lee Strobel or Philip Yancey or Tony Campolo will answer their questions and talk with them. These guys are great because, by the time they finish the conversation, they’re best mates with the caller. They don’t talk in a way that assumes ‘you’re wrong, I’m right’.

The next thing that we did a little bit of last year but we’ll do more of this year is: I went to people who I thought could communicate the faith and would say, ‘Light a match and then tell us the essence of the Gospel story by the time the match burns out.’ So they have about 25 seconds to give it to me in a nutshell. It’s quirky, interesting and fun, so that, even if you aren’t a Christian, you’re tuned in.

What is your goal for this year’s Easter programme?

I tend to walk away from the end of a programme asking: did we represent the heart of God? Sometimes I come away thinking, ‘Yeah, we really did. That was a fun, loving, interesting, entertaining, stimulating programme.’ Or sometimes it’s because people have phoned up who were on board with what we were talking about; they were engaging, whether they agreed with us or not. It is a sense of the presence of God in the programming, and that there’s a bit of fun. Sometimes I’ve left the show thinking: that was a bit flat, or a bit confrontational or heavy. It’s about striking the right balance, achieving the highs and lows, moments of laughter and moments of emotion.

Where do you see CBA headed in the next 10 years?

More shows on more stations. We once said that our aim was to have 10 shows on the Newstalk networks, and we’ve done that now if you include all the special event shows. A few more weekly programmes would be good. We do have a sports programme in the wings, but that might take a little while to come alive.

If you look at our current presenters, a lot of them are starting to be the top end of the demographic. We need bring in more younger talent, develop younger presenters. I’d like to get onto some of the other networks as well. We’re always working on new stuff and trying to push new things, but it’s a slow process that can sometimes take several years.

Because we are sowing the seed, we’re not really in the harvesting business. We don’t assume that we're going to have lots of people at the end of the programme saying, ‘Yes, I’m going to give my life to Jesus now.’ We wouldn’t even use that kind of terminology.

It’s really important that we pray and that other Christians are picking up where we have left off. The harvesting and discipleship is in God’s hands, so all we can do really is pray that we can be effective in our bit of the process.

Interviewed by Cara Wood (from War Cry magazine)

Who is Your Password ..?..

23 Mar 2009

Fifteen years ago I knew that I was computer illiterate. Thirty-five years earlier, I didn’t even know that I was a sinner. Being computer-ignorant never bothered me until my work required this skill. Being unaware of my sin didn’t disturb me until I envied the joy of dedicated Christians. To remedy both states, I sought help.

I was confident that I could master Information Technology. That is, until I had to perform a simple task: provide a password. What password? My tutor explained the importance of having my own unique personal password. Our lesson continued and slowly I became reasonably computer literate.

To remedy my sinfulness, my spiritual counsellor gave me sensible guidance:

• Admit your sin. (Isaiah 53:6, Romans 3:13)
• Believe that God can overcome sin. (Mark 10:26-27)
• Commit yourself to God (Romans 12:1) through repentance (Acts 16:31) and faith (Hebrew 11:6).

Entry by Password

Foolishly, I wanted to overcome IT (innate transgression), without repenting. Fortunately, my spiritual counsellor explained that repentance was necessary to gain entry into God’s Kingdom (Matthew 3:2). Without it, I am excluded from eternal life (1 John 5:11-12). Repentance, then, is the password that enables me to participate in God’s unique programmes (Romans 12:6).

The concept of ‘entry by password’ originates from military practice. To reduce enemy ambushes on a camp, a sentry would challenge anyone approaching to provide a password. The Bible records an occasion when some captives suspected of deceit had to say ‘shibboleth’. Only those who said it correctly were spared death (see Judges 12:6).

A better forerunner of the computer password is the ‘bawab’. In a rich family, the bawab was given the lowest household task, door-keeper. He stayed day and night in a small lodge by the door.

The bawab’s main task was simple. The door opened from inside, and only when the bar was raised. Someone wanting entry would knock. The bawab would ask: ‘Who is there?’ The visitor would then respond: ‘It is I.’ If the bawab recognised the voice, he lifted the bar. If he didn’t, he asked questions until he was convinced that it was safe to admit the inquirer.

In times of war, an enemy would batter down the door and kill everyone inside. In times of peace, a king’s emissary could strike the door with his rod of office and cry out, ‘Open in the name of the King’.

Computer hackers attempt to spoil or steal precious computer records. People who forget their passwords use legitimate means to rediscover it. Other people hire experts to reclaim ‘lost’ documents. These occurrences bypass an owner’s unique password. In this way they parallel the exceptions that overrode the bawab’s responsibility.

Jesus Christ is the Lion of Judah (Revelation 5:5); he could savage his way into our lives. He is the Lord of the angels (Matthew 26:53); those angels could enforce our submission. He is the King of kings (Revelation 19:16); he could command our undisputed servitude.

Open the Door!

Instead, he meekly requests admission into our lives. We have the bawab’s role. ‘Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me’ (Revelation 3:20).

We are like a sleeping bawab who will waken when he recognises his master’s voice, and will raise the bar. If we humbly awake to our sinful condition (Acts 16:30), acknowledge Christ’s lordship (John 10:14), repent our sin (Luke 23:3) and follow Jesus (Mark 8:34-35), we shall inherit eternal life (Acts 3:19, Revelation 3:20, John 3:16).

When we lift the bar, our Lord and Master humbly enters and eats with us. Christ first enters into our human life experience before offering us his superior spiritual nourishment. (John 4:10, 6:35). There is no other name by which we can be saved (Acts 4:12)—Christ has and is the password to eternal life (John 6:68).

A computer password opens the limited contents of our computer’s hard drive and memory to us. Christ owns the copyright to a programme of far more abundant life (John 10:10). Amazingly, he will not coerce our acceptance of this life. Patiently, he waits for us to respond to the password.

Then, all his spiritual world is ours too.

By Mervyn L.Layt (from War Cry magazine)

The Treaty through Christian Eyes

30 Jan 2009

Since it was first introduced in 1960 and then instituted as a public holiday in 1972, Waitangi Day and the treaty it celebrates has been regarded with some ambiguity by many New Zealanders, Christian and non-Christian  alike. How are we to make sense of the founding document that forged us into a modern nation?

The answer to that question may lie in an appreciation of biblical covenant and the remarkable story of Maori evangelisation prior to the mid-19th century. It is a story not entirely in keeping with the secularist viewpoints that have been prominent for some years, and it deserves to be told.

New Zealand's greatest Christian revival

By the late 1830s, Christian missionaries had made considerable inroads into Maori iwi. By 1845, over half of Maori were Christian, with 42,700 as Anglican, 16,000 Methodist and 5000 Roman Catholic. This is undoubtedly the greatest revival New Zealand has seen and yet it is virtually unrecognised as such.

The translation of Scripture into Maori and the rapid growth of literacy through mission schools were major factors in this remarkable achievement. European missionaries were learning basic lessons in anthropology and moving away from a dominant civilising agenda. In addition, there was the remarkable spread of the Gospel by Maori themselves, especially Christian slaves released by their now Christian masters.

It was a common occurrence for European missionaries to arrive in pa and kainga never before seen by a European, only to find a church already built and an active worshipping congregation! Maori, exhausted by the massive upheaval of the musket wars, turned in large numbers to Christ.

Treaty protection for Maori

Prior to 1840, an equally fascinating Christian phenomenon was unfolding in the United Kingdom. The British Colonial Office was heavily represented by members of the radical evangelical group known as the Clapham Sect (of William Wilberforce fame). The Colonial Secretary himself (Lord Glenelg) was a member of this remarkable group, which was committed to the protection of the interests of indigenous peoples.

New Zealand was a deep concern for these individuals - the large scale colonisation plans of the New Zealand Company in places like Wellington, Nelson and Taranaki, negative influences of European whaling and trading activities, the devastation of the musket wars and threat of French annexation all militated together to demand action.

It was agreed that the British Government needed to enter into a formal treaty with Maori that would protect indigenous Maori rights over land, bush, river and seas in exchange for British protection and sovereignty. Lieut-Governor William Hobson was dispatched from Sydney to achieve that end.

On 6 February 1840, the treaty was signed at Waitangi in the Bay of Islands. Historian Claudia Orange draws attention to the strong covenantal understanding with which Maori chiefs (starting especially with Ngapuhi) approached the treaty. These men understood and interpreted the treaty on the same terms as a biblical covenant between themselves and the Queen of England and it is this covenantal undergirding that offers an effective means of appreciating the significance of the treaty.

Ignoring the promises made

By 1851, however, 37,000 European settlers had arrived in New Zealand and already governments were choosing to ignore the protections of the treaty for Maori in the frantic grab for land. As Maori began to realise the treaty covenant was not going to be honoured many deserted the Christian faith or adapted new Maori expressions like Ringatu. Some iwi resorted to arms.

As warfare broke out in Northland, Wellington, Taranaki, Waikato, Bay of Plenty and East Coast, British regiments were despatched to deal with the threat and the government confiscated huge areas of land.

The Treaty of Waitangi document itself went missing from the mid 1860s until it was rediscovered in a rodent and water-damaged state in 1908.

Choosing to honour a covenant

The Treaty of Waitangi established an ongoing covenant of partnership between Maori and settlers. Salvationists understand this concept of 'covenant'. Covenant runs like a golden thread through the Old and New Testaments (or 'covenants'). Covenant lies at the heart of the Salvationistís dedication, marriage, soldier and officer vows. Other Christians hold similar values. Covenant is not contract; it is open ended. It is based on a relationship of trust and understanding.

Now that the treaty is being honoured and restored to its rightful place in New Zealand, we Christians possess a powerful lens with which to view it. The vision and understanding of those signatory chiefs is the same vision and understanding that can help us today - a covenantal view that recognises strong Christian imperatives at work in the signing of the treaty and that provides a biblical foundation of understanding of our treaty obligations.

By David Noakes (from War Cry magazine)