Month: January 2012

Urban neighbours bring hope, Jesus style

Peter HallettLeave a comment

“It’s a fair bet that if Jesus Christ were around today, he’d be doing what the Owens are doing in Mount Druitt. They feed the poor and house the homeless. They lead the lost and counsel the conflicted.”

So writes Tim Elliot in a Sydney Magazine article about Urban Neighbourhood of Hope couple, Lisa and Jon Owen. It shows that culturally we still know instinctively what Jesus is like and that we want to celebrate it when we see it on display.

“They’re experts at unconditional love: alcoholic mums, runaway kids, petty thieves, everyone’s welcome at the Owens’ home, a four-bedroom brick house that for the past five years has been equal parts street kitchen and safe house, as well as a home for their daughters Kshama, 8, and Kiera, 7.”

Tim Elliott’s article explains: “Jon and Lisa Owen belong to a small Christian order called Urban Neighbours of Hope. Formed in Melbourne in 1993, UNOH’s mission is to relieve urban poverty by embedding volunteers in disadvantaged communities. UNOH workers take what amounts to a vow of poverty, surviving on an income from the organisation that is capped at the local poverty line, the idea being that they can better identify with their neighbours’ circumstances.”

More info and opportunity to give to UNOH

News recalls the absurd and points to the perfect

Peter HallettLeave a comment

Sometimes the news gets the better of me either because it is shockingly bad, relentlessly tedious are downright absurd.

If ever there was a news cycle that would lead you to covert to nihilism and start whispering ‘everything is absurd’ then the past 24 hours might just do it:

  • A boy walks from his bedroom to show his mum a bullet after yet another Sydney drive-by shooting.
  • Soldiers urinate on dead Taliban fighters and say, ‘have a nice day buddy’.
  • News readers sound thankful that an Australian man only received 75 lashes while wearing a leather jacket
  • Mexican transplant staff drop a heart on the tarmac while rushing for the benefit of cameras.

This is the tip of the iceberg. I’m not even mentioning my own strange behaviour, or yours.

It reminds me that when looking for an explanation of a world where there can be so much that is beautiful, profound and wise and so much that is absurd, evil and tedious – all at the same time – the ancient texts of the Bible answer the call.

God created a good world and made human kind in his image which includes love, truth and choice. Humanity falls from the place and introduces chaos, absurdity and evil. The goodness and image of God still tarry in a world steadily succumbing to fallenness.

The dividing line for it all is a perfect life surrendered to the imperfection in all its manifest extremes. Take a hold of this life and you find a way out of the absurd.

That’s the simplistic version, but still the best…

And the moral (s) of the current news cycle – don’t rush when holding someone’s heart, keep your head down in Sydney’s suburbs, always love your enemies and never take off your leather jacket…

Gay protest could be Court’s toughest tennis challenge

Peter Hallett2 Comments

It could be a hard-fought three setter between tennis legend Margaret Court and proponents of gay marriage such as Kerryn Phelps over Court’s uncompromising views on the topic.

Dr Phelps has tweeted a call to Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu and Tennis Australia to rename the Margaret Court Arena before the Australian Open in Melbourne next week. And there has also been a call for people to protest by displaying rainbow flags at the tournament.

Pastor Court, a winner of 62 Grand Slam titles and now senior minister of Victory Life Centre in Perth, said she was ‘sad’ that her views on marriage were being brought into tennis, but that she would not be running away.

A Facebook page, ‘Rainbow Flags Over Margaret Court Arena’ has attracted 660 Likes while a recently added ‘NO Rainbow Flags Over Margaret Court Arena’ so far only has two. However many comments on the former page are actually in support of Margaret Court.

In The Australian, Ps Court explained that her views on gay marriage were based on the Bible and that she did not hate homosexual people.

“I have always said I have nothing against homosexual people,” she said. “We have them in our church. I help them to overcome. We have people who have been homosexual who are now married.

“When I spoke a month ago and stood for marriage, things came back from tennis players who probably didn’t read what I wrote. It had nothing to do with people personally or tennis players. I remember speaking to Navratilova 10 years ago on something she brought up with me and I said ‘Martina, I love you, God loves you, but a wrong doesn’t make a right’.

“I think I have a right, being a minister of the gospel, to say what it says from a scriptural side.

“I have always been a champion and always loved what I do and love tennis. I think it is very sad they can bring it into that. It is hard that they can voice their opinions but I am not allowed to voice my opinion. There is something wrong somewhere.” Read more

While Pastor Court’s views have been consistent and well-known for a long time, she spoke out on her blog in August about family and marriage and also during the gay marriage debate at the ALP Conference in December.

Related articles

24/7 prayer and night club worship meets the world’s party capital

Peter HallettLeave a comment

If you’ve read Pete Greig’s Red Moon Rising you would remember his descriptions of taking 24/7 Prayer Rooms to the clubbing districts of Europe to bring prayer, love and outreach to the thousands of young clubbers.

smh.tv has just released a documentary, God Bless Ibiza, which follows a group of young British Christians as they head to the Spanish clubbing hotspot of Ibiza. One website describes Ibiza as the ‘undisputed party capital of the world.’

The promo for the documentary reads: ‘Young, hip and radical, the team are a far cry from the sandaled missionaries of yester-year. They’re more at home in a club than a church, dance tracks are their hymns and they invoke the Holy Spirit in clubs with quasi-spiritual names like Godskitchen, Eden and Ascension. Whilst they have no problem hanging out with clubbers high on E, the team themselves have all sworn off drugs, alcohol and sex and say they get their kicks instead from supernatural experiences of God.’

If you are used to Christians copping it in the media, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by this documentary, not only for the in-depth and positive treatment the 24/7 outreach team is given, but by the groups faith and action. Prayer-walking, creative prayer spaces, worship in night clubs and genuine Christianity without a hint of religiosity.

Check out this nearly 40-minute online documentary and share it around.

Dear 2012, it’s nice to meet you

Peter HallettLeave a comment

Dear 2012,

We haven’t met yet. My name is Utterance and I’m a blog. Sorry I haven’t said hello earlier but it has taken a touch of insomnia from my mate Pete to get things going this year. Um, that’s you isn’t it. This year that is. Well look, I’ve never talked to a year before so if I get a bit muddled, please forgive me.

Anyway, we have a bit in common, me (Utterance) and you (2012). Being a new year, as you are, you’d be interested to know that I pretty much began when my mate Pete made a New Year’s Resolution involving your colleague 2010. This was that Pete would write a new post on me every day during 2010.

Well he managed 266 posts which is not bad, I think 2010 was pleased, and he reflected on this here. He kept going in your other colleague, 2011, and I had my busiest ever day on August 17, 2011 when nearly 700 people dropped by to read my account of Kate Bracks winning Masterchef. Strangely enough, my most popular post of all time is to do with food as well, with 8632 people dropping in on MasterChef’s seven sins; God’s endless forgiveness.

Sorry to say there appears to be no such resolution this you, as here it is your 11th and we’ve only just met. But I’m sure we’ll get better acquainted as the year, sorry, as you progress and to help I’ll give you a bit more background.

As a blog I’m rather hard to define, deliberately so I think, which is a bit like my writer who has never been comfortable in a box, sometimes to his detriment. You know you can get further sometimes just by fitting in but he’s one of those early sixties babies who was never quite Boomer, never quite Buster and then had three Gen Y kids and so it’s all over the place.

I’m quite reflective at times, possibly a bit sentimental and even a little regretful. Please 2012, give me a slap around the ears if I go to far down that path.

I love the news – bit of the old printers’ ink in the blood  – well that would be his blood I guess as technically blogs have bytes and hits and posts but not so much of blood. But yes he was and is a journalist so there’s a newsiness to myself.

I especially like spotting God in the headlines, little signs of faith and the divine that manage to emerge in the daily dust of the world’s happenings. That’s why I might talk about Tim Tebow or job ads or Ayrton Senna or buggity, buggity, buggity or the Amazing Race.

Sydney’s a favourite, this great sprawling city of broad beaches, tense traffic, drive by shootings and colourful characters. And the occasional dead body, rainbow or pedestrian poem.

And if I try and get a little wise, a little insightful, bear with me, this too will surely pass.

So dear 2012, I hope we get along okay and catch up more than occasionally. For your part, could please slow down a little as it’s hard enough to find a moment without you being in a rush too, insomnia aside.

Oh, and as you are just at the beginning, here’s mine, it might help complete the picture of what I’m about.

Fare thee well and remember the advice I give everyone – breath, speak, breath and don’t forget to jump.

Much love
Utterance

PS Mr 2012, you can also follow my friend Pete on Twitter.
PPS Mr 2012, I’ve heard rumours that you are meant to be associated with the end of the world, something to do with Mayan calendars etc. Anyway, just to reassure you I have much higher hopes for you than that and in any case, the world won’t end until He says so.