Bignorm.net

A Parable of Bad Service

bignorm — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:38:38 +0000

As I approached the grim yawning customer service assistant in Tesco this morning, I was quickly reminded of Ireland’s ZERO customer service policy (I could write a book). Being married to an American has given me the pleasure of visiting a country who – fake or not – realise and understand what good service is. The Irish just don’t get it.

These parallels of service standards permeate the Church in Ireland to. If I was honest, I’d say that the Irish church has (broadly) low standards and expectations when trying to run services and church related events. Some may jump on me here and accuse me of me being a victim of a ‘consumer church’ mentality, but the truth is that churches in Ireland do run services and do run events – they just don’t do them well. I think the difference here is that (again broadly speaking) that they not only run things on a shoe-string budget, but a shoe-string, ‘cheese-o-rama’ mindset. Is it any wonder the church is not taken seriously?

I pray for more spiritually/culturally/socially astute leaders who have the humility to take Paul’s exhortation seriously, and start living more like athletes training, living, and planning to win the race.

Irish Prepare For Rob Bell

bignorm — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:56:47 +0000

In preparation for Rob Bell’s visit to Ireland this month, Scripture Union have decided (for some reason) to display Rob’s book in the kids section of their Talbot Street window display.

Welcome to Ireland Robert.

The Emerged Church?

bignorm — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:09:24 +0000

Yes, you read right: The Emerged Church?

The obvious insinuation is the the Emerging brigade have finally emerged from their ‘conversation’. I suppose there is a tad of irony in this given that I like a lot of the questions that the ‘Emergers’ ask, though, I’m not so keen on their image of being evangelistically flimsy.

Jonathan Brinks article over on Emergentvillage.com suggests the end of the revolutionary church movement. Brink indicates that Driscoll was the first to flinch, followed by Kimball, with Tall Skinny Kiwi even talking of the end of the movement.

The Church in Ireland consumed a bit of their nonsense – but not much. Yet, positively, inherited some of their sharp awareness in regards the understanding a disconnected globalised generation of 18-35’s. The reality is that most Irish Christians still see the Emergents as American. Period. And with that, they see it as an acute response to a volatile church culture there, imploding into a kaleidoscope of toxic ideas: the epitome of the western Church.

Broadly speaking, the Irish Church can’t chuck anything from their glassy cathedrals; they have a plethora of their own in-house issues: pedophiles to megalomaniacs – I suppose like all sections of society, sadly. Working intensively with the Saint Patrick Foundation has afforded my hope for Christianity here again – the legacy of Saint Patrick, Ireland’s Patron Saint – a Holy Spirit driven legacy of reconciliation, redemption and restoration: the Gospel. My hope is that the Irish Church will quickly return to their vintage roots again and study how they can (again) become a land of ‘Saints and Scholars’, without waiting on the next ‘Transformational Church’ leadership book from the Amazon.com.

Post-Christendom Realities

bignorm — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:20:22 +0000

Patrick Mitchell’s new blog FaithinIreland is one of my better RSS feeds. His latest observations intrigued me today on post-Christendom realities. Check out his chart, courtesy of UK Anabaptist Stuart Murray Williams.

Most paid ministry professionals should feel a sense of discomfort considering these observations. The irony is that that this looks where I am headed – right to the epicentre of this great maelstrom of change in and throughout the church. I’m far from nervous, just anxious and excited to see where we are sailing for.

Bon Voyage!

PS. Let me know your thoughts on the chart.

Post-Christendom realities

Symptom / challenges

From the centre to the margins

Is there even a ‘centre and margins’ any more?

From majority to minority

Rapidly decreasing cultural and political and religious influence

How engage with and live alongside others who hold radically different values and beliefs? How do we do unto others as we would have them do unto us and what might this mean in practice?

Settlers ( at ‘home’) to sojourners

Exiles, aliens, pilgrims

A vision of counter-cultural lives and counter-cultural communities. Re-capturing the radical call of the Christian life.

Privilege to plurality

One voice among many – with especially negative attitudes to Christianity in light of the past

The call to be good news as well as talk about good news

From control to witness

Influence by witness, engagement, dialogue and respect – especially in light of Ireland’s legacy of control and authoritarian religion

From maintenance to mission

From a comfortable self-sustaining support base, into unknown territory of missionary engagement with western culture

Missional church – full of missionaries with a clear vision of their identity in Christ and calling to follow him

From institution to movement

Unwieldy ecclesiastical structures / bureaucracies – towards flexible, maneuverable missional communities

It is the Spirit who empowers the church for mission, who leads and guides and transforms his people. Study, reflection, prayer and seeking the Spirit’s lead

Irony For The Irish

bignorm — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:26:05 +0000

Osservatore Romano’s photograph in today’s Irish Times seems slightly ironic considering Vatican secretary Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said that “humilty” is the key to true renewal within the Irish Church.

Maybe my cynicism lets me see something different in this photo. Hmmm.

Disagreeing Badly

bignorm — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:12:32 +0000

George Barna’s latest post about Christians disagreeing is worth a read. The Ventura based Church statistician has profound awareness of one of the major dysfunctions within society today, particularly in the Christian world – disagreeing badly.

Since the inception of his successful company, the Barna Group, George has adhered to iron-clad rules, one of which applies here: “..we never say anything negative about those with whom we disagree.” He elaborates, “It is disheartening to witness (and experience) the hostility within the body of believers about differences in beliefs and practices. I know; some people believe they have figured it all out and feel they have been charged by God with making sure everyone sees things as they do… if the world is supposed to know us by our love, shouldn’t it begin with how we treat each other?”

Disagreeing well is not learned at college or by book, it is a realtime learned response that is forged through arduous conversation and conflict resolution. I’ve mishandled many disagreements, and sadly, I continue to do so in my human brokeness. The few people that I have observed handling disagreements well, both in conflict and enduring criticism have been through emotional wars that make me quake like a child. Those few stalwarts all have one strength, in particular, I think that we wish we had more off – humility.

Is the way we handle disagreements, conflict and criticism an accurate indicator of our humility, maturity, and perhaps are understanding of what it is to love unconditionally? I think so.

Biblical Infography

bignorm — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 12:41:06 +0000

Check out Yingyan Huang’s incredible infography. Yingyan has connected Jesus’ 250 events to the 66 books of the Bible.

The Ultimate Physician

bignorm — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:39:47 +0000

Assisted suicide is a hot topic again, stirring the whole question of God and medicine.

As a healthy western Christ-follower, I can only observe and think that ‘dying well’ is a step too far in medicine; or is it? How far do we go limiting what medicine is good, and what medicine is interfering with God’s perfect will? Some may even still argue that medicine is ultimately destroying the perfect will of God, scorning everything from aspirin through to Chemotherapy.

Severe suffering, disease and death can make euthanasia almost seem plausible. Scripturally, the Bible does not give any allowance for man to wilfully take his own life. It is GOD ALONE who governs life. Job 1:21 declares “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away.”

How do you feel about medicine and God?

Is it wrong to receive — or seek — medical assistance when we are in pain, or ill, or even just in discomfort? And how does this contrast with relying on Divine healing and faith?

Pomegranate Phone

bignorm — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 08:54:36 +0000

Finally a phone that does everything, yes, EVERYTHING. Forget the iphone or even the new Palm Pre, the Pomegranate IS the ticket.

Check it out: www.pomegranatephone.com

Pro-Blogging Pope

bignorm — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 20:34:27 +0000

In his message last May, the Pope acknowledged that priests face new challenges due to cultural shifts that have brought the conversation online. Thus, priests must do more than just take the Word of the gospel to the web.

Here’s a small excerpt from the entire message from the Pope:

“The spread of multimedia communications and its rich “menu of options” might make us think it sufficient simply to be present on the Web, or to see it only as a space to be filled. Yet priests can rightly be expected to be present in the world of digital communications as faithful witnesses to the Gospel, exercising their proper role as leaders of communities which increasingly express themselves with the different “voices” provided by the digital marketplace. Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis.”

This seems like a step in the right direction. Although, I’ve no doubt that priestly bloggers can look forward to the initial wave of colourful comments and expletive replies from the multitude of ignored abuse victims.