Majestic

These two photos were taken in 2006 by myself,

Promisekeepers 2005 showing the remodelled front stage.

Promisekeepers 2005. The worship band on the main stage.

Promisekeepers 2005.

Promisekeepers 2005.

Promisekeepers 2005.

Promisekeepers 2005.

Promisekeepers 2005.

Promisekeepers 2005.

Promisekeepers 2005.

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It is with much regret Christchurch has learned that this magnificent building which has been a church for the last 30 years, is to be demolished, due to severe damage sustained in the February 2011 and subsequent earthquakes. Here is my blog post with more details of the building, plus more recent photos taken by Ross Becker.

I remember a few years ago at a commemorative event (the anniversary of the NLCC ministry in the 1990s) we showed a video clip of the opening in 1980. Don Cowey was the architect in charge of restoring the building from a burnt out shell. He died on February 22, 2011, when the earthquake caused a rockfall at Redcliffs where his house was located.

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¹⁰ When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests in their vestments and with trumpets, and the Levites (the sons of Asaph) with cymbals, took their places to praise the LORD, as prescribed by David king of Israel. ¹¹ With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the LORD:

   “He is good;
   his love toward Israel endures forever.”

   And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. ¹² But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. ¹³ No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away.

(Ezra ch.3, NIV)

Laidlaw College

This year I have enrolled to study at Laidlaw College part time through their Centre for Distance Learning, which means I can work normal hours during the day and study in the evenings and weekends. The courses I am taking for this semester are 140.515 New Testament:Introduction and 115.515 Biblical Theology and our semester starts tomorrow.

There hasn’t been much written here for a while but there have been big changes taking place in my work. My contract with the school finished at the end of last year and I have had three extensions of a month each while new arrangements are negotiated, by which I will be changing employer and being employed by a professional IT company rather than by the school, we will be contracted to work in the school about two days a week and I will be in other schools two days a week in total. The fifth day will be spent in voluntary work with a number of possible options and the evenings and parts of the weekend will be spent studying.

At church we have restarted evening services in our inner city premises, the morning meetings are held in a hired school hall in Hoon Hay. I don’t bother much with the morning meetings as I have serious difficulties with the direction of the main part of the church. The evening meetings are organised by the youth ministries which is one of the more progressive parts of our operation especially when they held the outdoor meetings last year at Pilgrim Place.

Destiny and the Bishop

There’s been a bit of a stir lately over Tamaki’s latest plans to establish a new centre for the Auckland church, mainly because Tahu Potiki has written a column in the “Press” newspaper claiming there is rampant hypocrisy directed at Tamaki and the Destiny fellowship stream in general. Whilst Mr Potiki is making some reasonable points, the real issue is the strong similarities between Destiny and one of our mainline churches which I am not going to name here. If you apply that consideration then Tamaki can in theory be justified as one who is copying what he has seen in another mainline church and with apparently similar justifications to theirs. Of course, this also means what is negative about Tamaki should also reasonably be reflected similarly negatively onto that mainline church and its practices. I write not as one who supports Tamaki, but would nevertheless like to see some of the scrutiny being directed his way, also apply to that mainline church, which in itself is a far larger and more established organisation than the Destiny fellowship.

New Year, new outlook

What will 2012 bring? Everyone hopes for a better year than 2011. Whether that transpires is entirely a matter of our personal approach to whatever life throws at us. Here in Christchurch, we endured a very difficult 12 months because of the impact of earthquakes. It has brought us a new reality about life in our city. Life has changed and it will never be the same again. A great many people are having difficulty in adjusting to this reality. Commonly heard refrains are “how long will this go on” or “I want my life back”. But this is the new nature of life in this city. We will best adjust to it if we simply accept that this is the reality of our lives now. It is quite understandable that the earthquakes have brought change that is not always good. We can fully sympathise with people whose homes have been damaged or destroyed. We fully empathise with the challenges this has brought them and hope that they will be able to remedy this in the coming year. We hope that the coming year will also bring better economic opportunities as the city rebuilds damaged housing, commercial property and infrastructure. But we must accept that earthquakes are a part of our present reality of day to day life in this city for an unknown period into the future. So our lives must be adjusted to deal with this and we must pick up the pieces and go on with living. This will require some adjustment as suggested in a previous post recently. Our priorities will need to change and our lifestyle be adjusted to make sure there is a healthy work-life balance occurring as an essential rather than desirable component.

I think that many people struggle with this adjusted reality. Some who have struggled most have simply packed up their belongings and moved to another part of the country or the world. This is not, of course, an option for everyone. Another way of looking at it is not to fear earthquakes or what they can do. If we take this perspective, and put our lives into God’s hands, which they are in anyway, then we have the right sort of mental attitude that will carry us above the storms of life. That is why I have no intention of leaving. Sure, there is danger from earthquakes, and sure, I have found every single one of them challenging, like everyone else. I have had to go through the same sort of recovery challenge as everyone else, and at times I have found that exceptionally demanding. The past year has brought me more “down time” than at any other part of my life except back in the 1990s when I was depressed, unemployed and unemployable. Like everyone I have taken as much leave as possible, about five weeks, in addition to the three weeks which our employer generously paid for when our workplace was closed by February 22. The challenges have at times been monumental. But God has carried me through every one of them, and as He did so, my faith has grown and prospered. 2012 will be a year with new challenges to face up to, yet it will be an opportunity to seek out a new career path and direction that I have spent 20 years preparing for. At this stage the form of that is unclear but many pieces are starting to fall into place and I expect significant progress on some of these pieces over the next 12 months. I will be posting more about these in forthcoming weeks.

Therefore our challenge for 2012 is to accept that our lives are not our own. We live primarily to serve God and submit our lives to his direction and guidance. With that approach firmly established we are equipped with everything we need to deal with whatever 2012 throws at us.

Here is a reading for today: Psalm 1 (NIV)

¹ Blessed is the one
   who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
   or sit in the company of mockers,
² but whose delight is in the law of the LORD,
   and who meditates on his law day and night.
³ That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
   which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
   whatever they do prospers.

⁴ Not so the wicked!
   They are like chaff
   that the wind blows away.
⁵ Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
   nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

⁶ For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
   but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

Tragic

By now I expect everyone has heard about the sexual assault on a five year old tourist at Turangi. Police have charged a 16 year old boy with various offences related to the case and he made his first court appearance yesterday. The Police Detective Inspector leading the investigation told a press conference “New Zealand society probably needs to take another good look at itself.” With respect I think that is understatement. There are three (groups of) victim(s) here: the tourists, the boy’s family and the boy himself (this is not to excuse the crimes of which he has been accused – it is in the sense that he has messed up his own life very drastically). Yes, society does need to take a good look at itself. Society needs to ask itself hard questions about things like sexualisation of children at ever younger ages, tolerance of pornography, sexually explicit media programming and advertising, etc.

In the sense that gross sin is promoted and tolerated by society today we bring ourselves under the wrath of God’s judgement. At the same time God is seeking out for those who will stand in the gap for Him, who are willing to count the cost and courageously and selflessly be His agents in a degenerate, faithless world.

³⁰ “I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one.” (Ezekiel ch.22 NIV)

⁵ “So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. ⁶ My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.” (Ezekiel ch.34 NIV)

¹⁸ “The hearts of the people
   cry out to the Lord.
You walls of Daughter Zion,
   let your tears flow like a river
   day and night;
give yourself no relief,
   your eyes no rest.

¹⁹ Arise, cry out in the night,
   as the watches of the night begin;
pour out your heart like water
   in the presence of the Lord.
Lift up your hands to him
   for the lives of your children,
who faint from hunger
   at every street corner.” (Lam 2, NIV)

Reclaiming Christchurch

If there’s one thing I could impress as being important, it’s adapting to the situation we find ourselves in. That means adjusting our lives to what is important. For us as Christians that is something we should always have at the top of our list. In the aftermath of each earthquake, we have to deal with the disruption to everyday life that is caused by these circumstances. A lot of people out there are not adjusting and not coping, because their lives have been shaken up more than they are prepared to admit is good and necessary. Lots of people in general have had to readjust to a life in which they cannot admit to being fully in control any more, in which they have to face up to their own selfishness, with mixed results. Some of the headline stuff that is coming out of certain areas of the city with each new series of shocks is justifiable, but as someone who used to live there, I can’t admit to agreeing with every word spoken. I think a certain amount of it is according to the social gospel (which fundamentally I have a theological disagreement with) rather than the spiritual one. We can’t rely on the government or politicians to deliver the full solutions because they never actually can in all circumstances. That doesn’t mean I’m an anarchist or support some of the fringe associated groups that have sprung up masquerading as recovery campaigns. It just means that I accept that the government will never be able to address all of the needs out there because they are not perfect, as none of us are either.

Some people are going to suffer financial loss or hardship because of the earthquakes. That is as inevitable as it is unfortunate. It tends to be seen a little differently, however, with some of us who don’t own a home or have lots of assets. I could move house as I did back in August very quickly without strings attached. In some ways I was blessed by this, even though I aspire to home ownership one day. But those sorts of realities bring things into perspective, and you have to question whether our priorities are right. A lot of people will come out of this situation in relative financial hardship compared to where they were before the earthquake but it is unrealistic to expect Government to pick up the tab. Aren’t we lucky we are just the biggest natural disaster in NZ’s history and it is not happening all over New Zealand right now because if there was a lot more of it then there is no way the government could afford to pay. In that light, the attacks on the government’s red zone offer are unjustified. People also fail to appreciate the privilege that we enjoy living in the prosperous First World and how massive the gap is between our standard of living and a vastly greater proportion of the rest of the people on this earth. I have been heartened by the way the government responded in the hours immediately following February 22 to get relief supplies and resources into Christchurch. Try and believe that would have happened in Haiti or Bangladesh or wherever.

We all live in a new reality and we have to get used to that, come what may. Life may be unfair but so what, life was never meant to be measured by human standards. What matters is what is important in life and adjusting our present situation to what is most important, which for Christians is our faith. What matters most is reorienting our priorities in life to put Jesus at the top. Some people, organisations and churches I know are not doing that. They will have to change things around or else God will do it for them, and they won’t like how He does it. It’s been happening this year and it will continue for sure. Whether you believe theologically or not that God has caused the earthquakes to happen, the fact is that He has a purpose to be worked out in all of our lives through adverse circumstances such as these. Step up to it and accept it, and change your life around to work with it. There’s a harvest coming and God calls us all to step up to bringing that harvest in, to make sacrifices to bring it in, get out of our comfort zone and our comfortable self-focused lifestyle and endure a few hardships to win for the cause that never loses.

trust me girl God has not forgotten
He knew Mary Magdalene and the Woman at the Well
He knows everything that happened and in His arms she fell

- J Medeiros, “Constance”

¹ In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes^[a] (a Mede by descent), who was made ruler over the Babylonian^[b] kingdom— ² in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the LORD given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. ³ So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.

⁴ I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed:

   “Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, ⁵ we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws. ⁶ We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes and our ancestors, and to all the people of the land.

⁷ “Lord, you are righteous, but this day we are covered with shame—the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far, in all the countries where you have scattered us because of our unfaithfulness to you. ⁸ We and our kings, our princes and our ancestors are covered with shame, LORD, because we have sinned against you. ⁹The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him; ¹⁰ we have not obeyed the LORD our God or kept the laws he gave us through his servants the prophets. ¹¹ All Israel has transgressed your law and turned away, refusing to obey you.

   “Therefore the curses and sworn judgments written in the Law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against you. ¹² You have fulfilled the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing on us great disaster. Under the whole heaven nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem. ¹³ Just as it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come on us, yet we have not sought the favor of the LORD our God by turning from our sins and giving attention to your truth. ¹⁴ The LORD did not hesitate to bring the disaster on us, for the LORD our God is righteous in everything he does; yet we have not obeyed him.

¹⁵ “Now, Lord our God, who brought your people out of Egypt with a mighty hand and who made for yourself a name that endures to this day, we have sinned, we have done wrong. ¹⁶Lord, in keeping with all your righteous acts, turn away your anger and your wrath from Jerusalem, your city, your holy hill. Our sins and the iniquities of our ancestors have made Jerusalem and your people an object of scorn to all those around us.

¹⁷ “Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your servant. For your sake, Lord, look with favor on your desolate sanctuary. ¹⁸ Give ear, our God, and hear; open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your Name. We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. ¹⁹ Lord, listen! Lord, forgive! Lord, hear and act! For your sake, my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your Name.” (Daniel ch.9, NIV)

Looking out

This is the sole decoration I have in my household to Christmas. Years ago our extended family decided to stop giving presents – the reality is that as Christians we celebrate the true meaning of Christmas every day of the year, and a pagan festival that was taken over by the RCC doesn’t really have relevance. Tomorrow being a Sunday will be a day of rest as commanded in the Scripture – apart from that I don’t have any special food in the house or anything like that. Since I don’t have any annual leave to take over this period, I will simply be making the most of the two four-day breaks over Christmas and New Year to rest and relax.

It’s been a very tough year for a lot of us and the earthquakes yesterday, although their impact was minor, has upset a lot of people who would rather have forgotten the previous events. For me though, I am in a place of greater blessing, one part of which is that I moved away from the East where liquefaction and power cuts have been the rule again. I have got myself a very good Christmas present, if you can call it that – an NIV audio Bible from the Listener’s Bible website. This means I can load it onto my phone and listen to it wherever and whenever I want. It has 365 tracks for the whole Bible in one year. The second thing I am looking forward to over the holidays is to apply to Laidlaw College to do part time study. I guess this would be half of a full time courseload and hopefully eligible for a student loan.

Worshipping God or “his house”?

Originally I posted this directly on Facebook. In the aftermath of the earthquakes and destruction of many church buildings it is important to look at the spiritual consideration of whether we need these massive edifices. At the moment the Catholic Church are deciding whether to build a new cathedral (covered by $40 million of insurance) or restore the original (estimated at $100 million). Part of the story around the demolition of the cathedral was covered in a recent TV documentary, "Battle of the Basilica". A few weeks ago we also heard about the demolition of Holy Trinity Avonside Church and the controversy which erupted from heritage conservationists. And this debate is also raging in a very divisive way over the Anglican cathedral and other churches. When you look at the Basilica (see my photographic record of the work on it at https://picasaweb.google.com/pjrdunford/Earthquake2011A ) it is clear massive efforts have been made to prevent it from collapsing, yet it is crumbling away week by week. Is it really worthwhile or necessary to deconstruct rather than demolish? When the demolition of Holy Trinity Avonside was authorised by the Anglican Diocese a critic called it "sacrilege", an interesting choice of words in the circumstances. We were enjoined to believe that this church had to be preserved at all costs due to the meritous design of its ceilings and the name of the architect associated with it. How did we arrive at the conclusion that a church building becomes either a shrine to its architect or other builders, or some sort of consecrated hallowed ground to be adored by its parishioners and the public alike?

When we look into the Biblical record we find that consecration, relating to buildings, is an Old Testament concept. The temple and many of its articles were consecrated according to an elaborate set of rituals well documented in several of the earliest OT books. People were also consecrated (or called, set apart or dedicated) as priests, for example. Coming into the New Testament era of church history, the old order involving the temple and its rituals was abolished. There is no reference at all in the NT to the consecration of objects or buildings, but there are references to calling and dedicating people to the service of God. The only explicit NT reference to consecration outside people is in 1 Timothy 4:4-5, and this specifically in the context of rejecting consecration rituals practised by some sects. Regardless, certain churches mainly connected to the Roman Rite persist in consecration of their physical premises and by extension of this concept, constructing very elaborate buildings drawing on elements of the Old Testament temple designs and with the intention of denoting some kind of special or exalted status of the premises.

As Christians however it falls upon us to draw a clear distinction in the New Testament Era and to declare that the Church is the people rather than a building, and that a Temple is a common reference to a person's body who receives the indwelling of the Spirit of God. For post-Reformation churches which have drawn a clear boundary between the Roman Rites with their OT allusions, and the plain instructions and teachings of Jesus and his disciples, church buildings are to be considered as merely convenient places in which to hold services, and not as special, hallowed or sacred ground. We can meet in any particular building, or none at all. There is no need for any church building to be constructed in any special way, nor is there to be any allusion to any special stature that it has over other buildings. God does not indwell in stone temples built by human hands, but He lives within each one of us as His followers. Consequently in churches which are true to the New Testament teachings, church premises are typically functional plain buildings when seen from the outside, in which financial resources have been largely expended in providing functionalities and capabilities, rather than in form and appearance. That is the appropriate and correct way for a Christian church to establish itself in its own premises for holding meetings of its congregation gathering together to worship God.

I sincerely wish that all of the Christian churches would recognise these principles and that instances where church members have demanded that their building be preserved as a shrine or monument would cease. There have been numerous instances around New Zealand when ministers making changes in the layout of their churches have met fierce opposition from a clique which protests that a part of their building must be kept in a certain way to honour the memory of a certain former member or constructor. The same sentiments have been seen in the insistence that a historic church must be dismantled stone by stone or brick by brick and enormous sums of money and physical efforts be expended in preserving at all costs the construction materials and records of the physical appearance of the former building so that it can be reconstructed in a similar form in the future. At that point the building has ceased to serve its primary function of being a meeting place for God's people, and has been turned over to the service of godless anti-Christian beliefs of worshipping the building rather than the Creator. The preservation of "heritage" churches to such ends not only make it nearly impossible for congregations to adapt a building to new needs and requirements, they also impose unreasonable operating and maintenance costs. We are no longer serving God, but bound in servitude to the building itself.

The Catholic Basilica is clearly crumbling away, week by week. It may well collapse without any further human intervention. The Diocese has run out of funds to dismantle it further. They will come under pressure and expectation to reconstruct in a grand and expensive style. The old building was very difficult (not to say expensive) to heat. The materials it was made of were not conducive to high structural strength. The resources of the Diocese were stretched to maintain it. These are all the things that happen when the people are bound to serve the building, rather than the building serving the people. Many of these heritage churches fell down in the first place because it was insisted that their heritage features such as appearance were more important than the strengthening needed to make them safe. Many of them also were not able to be insured for their replacement value. Their disappearance will be decried by heritage enthusiasts but secretly welcomed by their congregations who are no longer compelled to meet in a building unsuited to modern needs. Since a lot of these older churches were kept operating in a hand-to-mouth existence with funding constraints, they may not be replaced at all. The disappearance of these churches will not spiritually disadvantage their members one whit. So why do we spend so much time wailing and gnashing teeth over the decrepit state of some churches post-earthquake?

I look forward to a post-eq Church community in which we have restored the proper place of buildings to New Testament standards, and where therefore our focus is on the needs of people first and foremost above the form and appearance of the buildings we choose to meet in.