Starless and Bible Belt

So yesterday I went on one of my occasional pilgrimages out to Melbourne's Bible Belt to see my wonderful friend Sharon. The occasion yesterday was a fundraiser for the Youth Dimension Coffee Shop she is leading in Millicent, SA. And it was quite a fun afternoon, really. The weather was beautiful, and the main entertainment of the afternoon was the band, San Salvador, playing in what is known as the Factory at Mitcham Baptist Church, a kind of industrial storage space with basketball court and lots of packaging lying around the place. We all sat on couches while San Salvador played, and I was pleased by the generally relaxed, cool vibe of the afternoon. The band were also pretty good. If you've ever thought, as I often do, that there just aren't enough art punk/ska-core songs inspired by "Moby-Dick", well, check out San Salvador's MySpace and you will be pleased to find that there's at least one more now.

There were also a few talks along the lines of "why you should come to Coffee Shop", and I surprised myself by, for the first time in four years, considering potentially going. I was partly excited to hear of the existence of a new shop in Jindabyne, which sounds like a pretty cool place (and I liked the film). And I've also started to remember everything that I liked about the two shops that I did in my first couple of years living in Melbourne. And yet part of me feels quite uncertain about the prospect of going along and being the only Anglican from the Northern Suburbs - in short, feeling even more the odd one out than I felt last time I went.

That being said, I've grown up a lot since my last shop, and am much more secure in myself. Nevertheless, my most recent experience of going to a church in the 'Burbs was surprisingly discouraging - mostly because I was reminded, yet again, of how little I could ever fit into a church where paintball and sport were the two things that brought men together. My memories of shop are of a similar kind of culture, one that I'm a bit scared of, to be honest. Because no-one likes feeling left out, but you get sick of trying your hardest to fit the mould when you suspect most other people there were just born loving paintball and saying "Awesome" lots.

Each shop, I've grown to love everyone on the team, and come to respect them for who they are. And I suspect they've come to feel the same way about me. And yet, five years after I first went on a shop, I now have a grand total of one close friend from either of my two shop teams. The impact that each shop had on me spiritually has gone nowhere. But the community? It still seems to be alive and well. I'm just not in it.

I'll pray about whether to go on shop this year. Maybe it'll be a chance to overcome some of the baggage of the past. Or maybe it'll just remind me that, while the gospel isn't bound by culture, a few too many of its followers are. I really hope it could be the former, not the latter.

Revival in Moreland?

Well, it's been a while since I've blogged on my search for a church community. That doesn't mean that the search has been on hold - quite the opposite. I guess I've just been a bit reluctant to blog about my thoughts partly because I haven't wanted to sound critical of some churches that may be functioning perfectly well but just aren't quite what I'm looking for. Then there have been other churches that I do feel quite critical about but don't feel that this is the forum for expressing that...

Nevertheless, here I am once again talking about it, and, PTL, I have good news to relate. I've now found a church - I think...While I'm very excited about it all, and confident that it's where I'm supposed to be, it's all quite new and I don't exactly want to speak too soon. That said, I went there today for the third time in a row, and am still happy there. A good sign, I suspect. It's a small evangelical Anglican church in Moreland - not Darebin, but it's only five minutes' drive from my place, and my end of Darebin is practically Moreland anyway (see the attached photograph that I took while going for a stroll near my place - the sign says "Moreland City Council: Diverse Community", if you can't make it out).

Now, when I started the whole church-hunting process, I wasn't exactly sure what I was looking for. One of my housemates suggested, some months ago, that I might want to write out a list of essentials, which I thought was a wonderful idea, but didn't have a clear enough concept in my head of what was and wasn't essential. I suppose what brought me to this position was a fairly naive, faith-driven notion that the church in the inner north was struggling a bit and that, now that I was living in the area, it would be good for me to get involved there, rather than commuting to the east each Sunday. I suppose I also had an idea about localised community, something lacking a lot in Melbourne, and wanted to be part of a geographical church community for the first time since I left home.

Having now found the kind of church I want to be a part of, I've also been able to figure out what my criteria were. And they aren't surprising, but I suspect I needed to go through the last eight to seven months to figure them out anyway. I won't list them here, because they're probably not that interesting to anyone not me, but what's really struck me, and surprised me, has been a growing need for clear orthodoxy.

I say this is surprising because, while I've grown up in the evangelical church, and have been a low-church evangelical Anglican for the past four or so years, I always felt a bit liberal around most evangelicals, but then quite fundamentalist around liberals. I'm still not crazy about categories, but I have to say that, from my travels to different churches in the area, I'm not blown away by how successful the more "fresh expressions of faith" are proving to be. Not because there's anything wrong with being fresh - quite the contrary - but because they are seemingly too caught up in being fresh that they aren't spending enough time going to the "ancient paths" to be reminded of what the foundation of our faith is. Now I'm not talking about liturgy or church tradition here so much as an understanding of the common basis of faith that can unite today's believers with the church as it was at all different stages throughout history. Because, as a member of the Acts 29 Network suggested in one talk, you can engage with culture all you like, but you also need a foundation in faith and doctrine, otherwise you're just "engaging with culture", but what are you engaging them with?

There are a lot of questions abounding about what constitutes orthodoxy. Currently I'm living in an area where the "Orthodox" church is quite prominent, and that's a whole different matter. For evangelicals, orthodoxy often centres around certain recurring debates. Some would say you are not orthodox if you believe in the ordination of women, or if you support gay marriage, or don't believe in predestination, or agree with all the parts of Calvin's TULIP. Now I've deliberately used a mixture of issues where I do hold the mainstream line, issues where I diverge, and issues where I don't know what I think. I'm not sure how essential these issues are to our faith, mostly because I believe that, if we get the fundamentals right, a lot of other things will follow. If we have a healthy, growing relationship with Christ, all manner of sin and heresy will be brought to our attention by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit. And if the Holy Spirit isn't convicting us all that often? Well, male or female, gay or heterosexual, whatever our individual struggles are, if we're never being convicted of sin in our lives, we either don't have the Holy Spirit, or aren't listening.

Here's my suggestion for what should constitute orthodoxy:
That we believe Jesus Christ was God in human flesh, and that He was without sin, but died a sinner's death so that we could be reconciled to God, if we put our trust in Him.

It's possibly not quite that simple. It often isn't. But I've been to some churches lately where that basic belief has not been mentioned once. Should it be mentioned every service? It probably wouldn't do any harm, and it would certainly help keep things on track. The Anglican liturgy offers a mixture of creeds and prayers that cover the essentials every week, whatever the sermon topic. That's probably why, at this stage of my life, I'm most happy to call myself an Anglican. First and foremost, I'm a Christian, but right now, as I search for different ways to minister to the world around me, some involving "fresh expressions of faith", I'm also being reminded of how essential it is that we keep coming back to the essentials, because, without them, what are we standing for?

Or, to put it another way, without getting our foundations right, what are we standing on?

Wanted: One church community

Sometimes I feel as if my life is being governed by two completely opposing forces. In the past, those forces have manifested themselves in the equal but irreconcilable desires to settle down and to move. This year, as I begin, a little confusedly, to make my home in the Northern suburbs, I'm finding that less of an issue. Now, it's more the tension between wanting to mix with people unlike me, and to fit in.

For some time I've found that there's a certain amount of contact with a wide variety of people that I need to feel balanced and well-rounded. I love the feeling of learning from people whose experiences in life have been nothing like mine. I love just how varied society can be, and I love getting to know lots of different people.

But there are a couple of issues that I tend to come up against reasonably often. Here they are:

1) Much as I love mixing with a wide variety of people, most people like to mix only within their own group, so I'm restricted to those who also like to meet lots of different people.
2) I'm quite shy, although you wouldn't always know it, and so, while I often like getting to know lots of different people, this isn't always as easy as I would hope.
3) I hate feeling like I don't belong.

Here I am, right now, having chosen to move to an area where I knew there wouldn't be so many like-minded people, and in some ways I'm loving the diversity and having my horizons broadened. On the other hand, I'm struggling with the lack of like-minded people. I don't want to be surrounded by them. I get sick of people like me, and I get sick of my own company. But I still need some contact with people who see the world like I do - and it's rare enough for me ever to meet anyone with the same outlook on life as me, so I'm wondering sometimes why I've willfully placed myself in an area where I'm reducing the chances of finding like-minded companions.

But here's the paradox: for me to meet people who are truly like me, they can't be complacently sitting in their huddle of like-minded companions. They too need to be out there having their horizons broadened, and associating with wide ranges of people. They probably also need to have a heart for the less glamorous, less privileged, areas of society. Meaning? On one hand, I'm reducing my chances of meeting them by making the move to this area, but, on the other hand, I'm increasing my chances.

Kind of confusing, isn't it?

I suppose at the moment this lack of companionship is at its most pointed in my search for a church community. Christians are in the minority wherever we go. And then there are fewer evangelical churches in the area I've moved into, meaning that I've chosen to move to an area with a reduced representation of a minority group. But...I could go to a church in another area, filled with people like me, but a) would not be being faithful to the direction I feel God has given me in my life, and b) would not be going to church with people who have a heart for the North-West.

I guess I've just got to keep praying, and keep trusting. It's not as if I'm completely alone at the moment, but it can be difficult to know how much we are supposed to belong, when we've already chosen to move out of our comfort zone. I know that God can be trusted. I suppose I'll just have to wait and see what happens next.