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16 hours ago
From previous posts we saw how significant the primary and high school age group was for reaching the Chinese - and especially the next generation of ABCs (see here and here for example). Today we have a look at some stats put out by the NSW Department of Education and Training (DET)... 1. Increasing numbers of LBOTE kids Here is a graph covering the 2003-2008 period for NSW government schools. The red line shows the number of students from language background other than English (LBOTE) and maps to the left-hand scale. And the green line shows you all enrolments for primary and secondary NSW government schools and maps to the right-hand scale. You can see that over the 2003-2008 period, the number of total enrolments has fallen - yet during this same period the number of LBOTE students has actually increased! Highlighting how our schools are increasingly becoming mission fields. 2. Stats for that school down the road It's nice ...2 days ago
I recently prepared some stats on the Chinese in Sydney, to share with some Anglican ministers. Which raises the question: how are denominations going at reaching the Chinese in Sydney? What I've done today is prepare a graph with the age profile of the Chinese in Sydney (the red line). This maps to the scale on the left hand side. And then I've worked out the number of Chinese in Sydney who identify themselves as Anglicans, Presbyterian / Reformed, Baptist, and Uniting Church (green, blue, brown, cyan respectively). These map to the scale on the right hand side. Click the image for a larger version stored at Photobucket. I've arranged it like this so you can compare the shape of the denominational age profiles, to the shape of the Chinese age profile (red). This is useful in highlighting segments of the Chinese population that may be being reached by the Anglicans (say) - but nowhere close to the numbers that we should expect from ...23 days ago
This is part three of a series - see the first two parts here and here. Some of you might think that 'reformed theology' is as far away from a vibrant spiritual life as you can get. Because for many people 'reformed theology' does conjure up images of serious, unsmiling people with thick books of dusty theology under their arms. It makes us think of tiresome people endlessly discussing about predestination... not very attractive! One of the major ways that reformed theology has been misunderstood is that people think it is primarily about predestination and TULIP. But that's actually wrong: reformed theology has always been about the glory of God first and foremost - and God's sovereignty in salvation was only ever a stepping stone towards the end point - of the glory of God. In fact I have even come across books about reformed theology written by major scholars where they talk a lot about predestination - but who don't mention the glory of God at ...
23 days ago
Last time we looked at the first part of the table outlining two vastly different visions of the Christian life (see previous post). For many Christians, the battle they are fighting is between selfishness on the one hand, and Christianity on the other. And in the face of worldly selfishness that elevates my own desires and my own interests, it's probably natural that Christianity is cast in terms of its antithesis: suppression ofmy own desires, and in its place doing God's things. And I think, for some Christians, this is how we end up with a Christianity driven by duty and obedience. Instead of selfishly doing our own thing, we should dutifully submit ourselves to doing the things God wants us to do. Because after all, God is God, right? we should let him call the shots, right? The problem is that this puts the focus on outward obedience and conformance - and not on the inner affections of the heart. Yes, ...24 days ago
I think there is something seriously wrong with a lot of our Christianity. And this is even true of many evangelicals... Over the last short while I've been working on a table and sharing it with some of our leaders at ND, and our Bible study group too. One column is entitled, "Christianity of duty and obedience", while the other is entitled, "Christianity captivated by the glory of God." And what I've done is I've created rows of all different aspects of the Christian life - how we pray, how we think of evangelism, how we conceive of Christian growth - and mapped what it would look like under both of these visions of the Christian life. Here is part of that table. Have a read of these two columns: read down one column, and then down the other. You'll see that a lot of our preaching, our ministry and practical Christianity is actually represented by the first column. And while it seems good enough, you can see that after a while it is a kind of ...
