80's Rural Christianity

At the time I would have said I was a 'Born Again', reflectively God had always captivated and wooed me.
One of the formative times for me was the Christian lunch meeting which occurred at the private school which I attended. Their wasn't many of us. A handful. It was the usual stuff. Some prayer, some reading of the bible. We where the minority; strangely in a Christian School, (But better known for the most expensive fees in town).
One of the most exciting times for us and the only one I can remember was when we had a convert. She was one of the most 'out there' in the School at the time. Hair which had a dyed streak of pink (or was it Orange). She was a bit of a hippie. Our group had an edge.
I'm not sure where or how she was converted. But introduced to our group was Christian rock music, passion in debate and evangelism.
Sure we where still the minority but we now had a bit of flair.

The introduction of new new people and new ideas has been on of the most important aspect of my Spiritual formation. Hopefully with an open heart, I pray it continues.

Churches doing charity?

One of the difficult things for church communities is how to do social justice well. It is something that I have and our church community has continually wrested with. Some of the option are::

1) Start some sort of program such as a dinner, soup kitchen. As one friend put it "Christian charity"

This looks great but has a number of issues ::

• Need to have people who are committed
• need administrative and some policies in place.
  
• need to have a medium to large church to make this happen well.
  
• start up and ongoing cost
• a tendency to do thing "for people", not "with people"
• program orientated
  
• Any scene of Christian formation is devoid in the program, for the leaders as well as participants
  

There are real positives, if done well, real social capital can be achieved.

2) Joining what is already happening. If there are local projects happening, join in with the community working along side what is already happening.

For us at Ranges in many ways this has been the only real option in some ways.

• Others take administrative, policy responsibility
• It can mean greater choice for people to choose, where they feel they are called
  
• chance to rub up along side non-Christians

3) Just doing a one off project. We at Ranges have done this well especially regarding environmental stuff. Clean up Australia as well as National tree planting day.
Unfortunately there is not that much ongoing relationships.


All of these have a number of overlapping issues, for me.

The greatest is the 'For people', instead of 'With people'. People participate in the project because it makes them feel good, they are doing something. Not because they want to journey with someone.
Fundamentally it is about 'Spiritual formation'. Is Spiritual formation included in the project where people, leaders and participants on a journey towards a better knowledge, understanding, relationship with God? I would say yes there is an element of 'Spiritual Formation' in any project but how effective and ongoing is it?


In many ways I think that there has to be some responsibility with education with those leading the project encouraged to look at there own Spiritual formation as well as the participants. This maybe one way of overcoming this issues.


Don't get me wrong I still think social justice, projects are worthwhile, but I think we/others can do a lot better.

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