If you have been scanning the newspapers over the last few days, you could be forgiven for thinking that the unfolding Fukushima nuclear disaster is over. I am no expert, but if you have a bit of a dig around nothing seems further from the truth: some food is contaminated, radiation levels remain far in excess of safe levels, and the reactors themselves are far from stable.
Already the extraordinary events at Fukushima make it one of the worst nuclear accidents ever. But have you noticed news items like the suggestion that Melbourne is a more popular domestic tourism destination than Sydney, and the purchase of a house by Russell Crowe are more newsworthy than the Japanese and Fukushima disasters?
Why? It is the ‘news cycle’: a professional and dignified way of saying that we get sick of things quickly. It is an acknowledgement that new things spark our interest, and old things are ….. well, old.
I thought I’d expand the topic of Michael Kellahan’s excellent post last week: Fixing the broken bikes.
Whether we admit it or not, we like to focus on the new and exciting. Who has not been tempted to plant a church over a seemingly more mundane option because it looks ‘sexy’? For the record, I am all for church planting. I am also all for fixing completely ‘broken’ bikes. And we should also invest in fixing ‘wobbly bikes’. Last week’s analogy of broken bikes probably included this category. But I think it is worthy of some focus.
By ‘wobbly bikes’ I mean churches that are travelling along. They are not necessarily failing. But nor are they travelling as they should, or could. One term that has recently emerged to describe these churches is ‘satisfactory underperformance.’ Nothing causes you to focus on them. From a distance they seem to be doing OK.
But if only they could be ‘fine-tuned’, they would have a greater impact for the Lord Jesus. If our city is littered with many churches in this category, perhaps our great city can be transformed for the Gospel. Apart from the obvious enormous property resources, it is the people in these churches who are even more important.
When we have this discussion, it is worth bearing a few things in mind. First, there is a danger of looking to the larger well-resourced churches for models. No doubt there are some great principles to draw from, but what we need are models for the more typical church.
Second, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed at fear of being told to ‘do more’. But if it was possible to determine a few focus items for our Sydney Anglican Evangelical context, it could be quite liberating.
Some incredible and unique research is nearing its conclusions about our own context and where a typical church might focus its good efforts (there I go, appealing to our sense of something new and exciting!). It should go without saying that this is a discussion within the critical parameters of God’s sovereignty and biblical methods. Many, such as our Mission Area Leaders, have been quite involved in the process. In the coming months it will be compiled and disseminated.
But in the meantime, let’s try to answer the question ourselves. If you could focus on only three areas to turn a wobbly bike into a ‘well-performing’ bike (within these parameters), what would they be?
Photo credit: richardmasoner
