Napier Baptist

Chris kindly gave me a CD with camp photos on it. So I thought I'd share some more with you:

Brian Smith had us acting out the story of Zac's for Tax (the story of Zacchaeus). A reminder that religion says "If you do this (sacrifice a chicken, pray hard enough, repent enough) then God will do that (give you what you want)" but Christianity says "God loves you (even though we don't deserve it) therefore live out of that love."

Zac's for Tax:

The rest of us tried to learn the Zaccheus story off by heart:

We had a ringmaster:

And he took the whip to any who dared to be late!:

Some rode horses:

Others went on flying foxes:

Others swung through the trees:

It was a great time for our children:

There was a sweet swimming hole:

Some good looking ladies (or is that lads?)

Then an unnamed someone tried to beat the pastor at spoons! But as I said, Ian, I'm the champ at spoons and, for some reason unknown to only you, I can hit harder than you! It's all in the timing people, all in the timing!

And the mystery hand is.... (thanks for the help Hayden)

The unnamed someone went to bed practicing his timing!

Stu is currently on the prowl for a Baptist church and he described his vision for the church as messy and then felt it caused the people who he was talking to have their eyes glazed over. It reminded me of what I wrote on my personal ministry profile when my profile was being sent out to vacant churches. Under theological principles I wrote this:

THEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES: The love of God for the whole of creation is revealed in Jesus Christ and is continually revealed to us by the Spirit. Salvation comes from the Father, in the Spirit and is in Christ alone. It is this love of God for the whole of creation, redeemed in Jesus that is good news for the whole world. The Bible is the Word of God and the primary source that witnesses to this good news. It is this good news that Christians are called to witness to. I understand mission not to be something that the Church does but rather the essence of what the Church is. Similarly, I believe worship is not something that Christians do but is something that Christians are. I understand mission and worship to be the Church following God in expressing and witnessing to the whole world about God’s coming Kingdom. In light of this I believe that mission must engage Christianly with our society that we are trying to reach. Such engagement is generally messy because people’s lives are messy, but messy mission is also deep mission. I will seek to not simply talk about such mission, but to model it as well. Similarly worship will give expression to the good parts and the difficult parts of our lives and bring it under the lordship of Jesus. The Church is a gathered people (for worship) and a scattered people (for mission). The gathered community has prayer and mutual encouragement and respect modelled on the Trinity as central to its being. The Church is an accepting and open community that allows the diversity of age, nationality, social status, gender and background to give richness to its expression of the redeeming grace of God. In its functions, such as expressions of worship, mission and discipleship, the Church will allow this principle of richness in diversity (based on the Trinity) to govern its actions. I believe that everyone is uniquely gifted by God and has an important contribution to make and unique experiences to share. I believe that opportunity must be given to people to express their unique gifts and experiences, so that the Church’s witness of God’s love is broad and rich and exciting.

I still stand by these principles. I remember Mick Duncan saying to a group of us students training for pastoral ministry that only 1% of the world ever get the chance to study at tertiary level and so we need to make sure we don't waste it. We need to come out of college with our 'Big Idea' not necessarily sorted but at least bubbling. Messy mission was my big idea. In Acts 15 we find God, through his Spirit, leading the early church into a much messier mission than it could dream or handle. God is at the forefront of leading the church into messy mission! I was warned off what I wrote by some in officialdom because it would be unimpressive to churches. However, it was exactly my convictions on messy mission that connected with the hearts of those on the Napier Baptist search committee. This was central to our sense of call and where God was leading us.

Stu, Jesus said don't fear! Be confident about your future because the future belongs to God...

We at Napier Baptist are blessed with a great church family. Our church camp was a fantastic time of fun and laughter together. Here's some photos of the weekend including the classic Bearsley version of Andrew Picard and his mid life crisis (now that I've turned thirty). If you're a Napier Baptist goer and have some photos from the weekend you want to share, e-mail them to me at andrew.nbc@xtra.co.nz and I'll add them in....


Some of us solving the world's ills...


The now famous Bearsley version of my (Andrew Picard's) mid life crisis:


Don't know what OSH think of this one...

Last year Lynne Taylor reflected on Christian songs that seem to be infatuated with Jesus' death. Songs that have lines about wishing we could see Jesus' face as he died, the pain etc. I guess they're wanting us to see the gravity of his pain and the guilt we should feel for our sin that caused it. Lynne says, "actually I don't think I could bear the pain on seeing his face." We had Brian and Shirley Smith share the weekend with us at our church camp and with Good Friday approaching I was reminded of a picture Brian used to show us in his Christology class of 'The Tortured Jesus' upon the cross. Like Lynne, I'm not sure I want to gaze into his face or see my sin upon that cross! I don't think I can handle it!

Was freakin awesome! I mostly hate church camps and find them to be especially lame. I can honestly say that this one wasn't. In fact I haven't laughed as hard as I did last weekend in years. I will hopefully put some photos up soon, just need some permission first.

Steve has a provokative post on why he thinks Christians should be vegetarians. What I appreciate deeply with Steve is that his views on vegetarianism came from him reflecting on scripture and his responsibility towards God's creation and this caused a fundamental change in the way he lived his life. Irrespective of our views on vegetarianism (and I don't mean that to be dismissive), it makes me wonder whether I am as open to God being able to still fundamentally change how I live my life in the light of scripture and my responsiblity towards God's creation?