Mortice and tenon joint

An enjoyable experience at a Scripture Union NSW Beach Mission has been facilitating the adult's section. At the Beach Mission site that I attend the adults enjoy instruction, and participation in, a craft activity. While the children are occupied in vigorous games, the adults enjoy less strenuous activity. Where the children are drenched in sun, the adults reside in shade.

I've facilitated some interesting activities for the adults over the years. They have included:

- car maintenance,

- lawn mower maintenance,

- laying a concrete slab,

- making a lolly dispenser,

- making a velvet-lined storage box.

This year's activity was themed to the day's Bible reading. The adult's section follows the same reading assigned the children. The reading was from Matthew; the wise and foolish builder. The words of Christ from Matthew 7:

The Wise and Foolish Builders

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

The link to Biblical theme was formed by choosing a building activity. That activity was a mortice and tenon joint that was fixed by dowel. The adults where required to handle three pieces of timber as indicated in this image:

The three pieces of timber were prepared prior to the event. The tenon was deliberately concluded in a rough state so that the participants would need to shape it further before it sat neatly into the mortice.

The dowel acts as a pin that is tapped through the fitted tenon-in-the-socket - & holds the two pieces together. So, the joint can be dismantled and reassembled. In the assembled state the item looks like a mallet.

Participants had to make final cuts, sanding, fitting, hole drilling & insert the dowel. Equipment was provided including a bench dill.

A group of approximately twenty people enjoyed the activity. A skilled instructor  capably handled all enquiries and offered sound assistance.

Shalom,

Ozhamada

P.S. The Beach Mission site has a plant that is at time of renewal at the time that I am at site. You can read about that plant here.

Ancient text

Many churches, with their babytalk modern services, Ladybird Bibles, trite preaching and kindergarten happy-clappy music, seem designed to drive away any thoughtful person. 

Peter Hitchens, in Daily Mail

Progressive Christians love nothing more than new exegesis and new hermeneutics. It serves them well to conclude that there have been thousands of years of penurious Biblical scholarship. “Only we can understand this ancient text” they say. It is a form of academic snobbery – that interpretations that come last, land best. As a result, none of the progressives have in recent years published anything that holds its worth against the poorest of writings of Tozer, Edwards, Spurgeon and C.S. Lewis.

Which brings us to the Perth Anglican Archbishop Kay Goldsworthy offering the novelty of interpretation of Exodus 15. Goldsworthy shared the novelty in Sydney. Goldsworthy was in Sydney to celebrate 40 years of Movement for the Ordination of Women. Where other visiting Archbishops may perhaps be given the pulpit of the Anglican Cathedral, Goldsworthy secured a spot at Christ Church St Laurence – a Anglo-Catholic parish church a cooee yell distant from the Cathedral.

Goldsworthy on Exodus 15 is proof alone of the need for continuity of male-only preaching. If Goldsworthy had introduced her Exodus 15 novelty into a formal debate on the “Worth of Women Preaching” the opposing side would rest their case. The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, who gave permission for Goldsworthy to speak at Christ Church, perhaps slyly reckoned that he need only offer enough rope.

So, to Goldsworthy on Exodus 15. Here is the part of Goldsworthy’s sermon that requires attention. It is copied from the transcript that Youtube usefully offers. I’ve emphasised the part of the text that piqued my interest. You can view the whole sermon on this link.

“Our reading stopped at the end of chapter 14, so we missed the opening verses of chapter 15 which English Bibles head the “song of Moses” after God's people land on the other side of the Red Sea. It's worth noting, and it may not be surprising, that the song of Moses is placed ahead of a more ancient text the song of Miriam. The song of Miriam is one of the very ancient texts of the Hebrew scriptures and appears a few verses on in chapter 15 at verse 20. It has Miriam taking a tambourine in her hand and all the women going out after her with tambourines and with dancing.”

The novelty is in the suggestion that the song of Miriam is “a more ancient text” than the song of Moses. That is a novelty in that Biblical scholars find both songs to be ancient text – older than the chapters either side of it – as measured of the age of the Hebraic language. Plausibly, the author of Exodus chose to deposit the songs in their original form directly into the book. Miriam’s song – which is possibly truncated – is effectively a repeat of the first stanza of the song of Moses.

A sketch that was included on Sydney Morning Herald's letter page 17 September 2023,
titled: "Arch Rivalry", by Simon Ketch

Goldsworthy assigns Miriam’s song prominence that it does not have. Putting Miriam’s song ahead of the song of Moses (the feminine voice is put ahead of the male) may have tickled the day's audience yet would not survive scrutiny of Moore Theological College.

The new exegesis, the new hermeneutic, merits no attention in Sydney.

Shalom,

Ozhamada

Skip watching

“I too have been tempted to simply skip watching.”

I’ve exchanged emails and Facebook posts with a USA based minister friend about his experience with online church. He has been very careful with his online COVID19 Sunday service as he is aware that media is not neutral. He is afraid that he is Netflixing his congregants.

The notion that the media is not neutral – that people do not adequately distinguish that they are watching church when on the same device they view a Batman movie – is a genuine threat. It was recognised by a media ecologist Neil Postman in a credible book “Amusing Ourselves to Death”. Postman predicted that television would be so persuasive that other presentation forms would gravitate towards television formats.

Postman would not have predicted that a Sydney Anglican Senior Minister Netflixed himself to the point where he was tempted to find an alternative to his own service (per the quote above, an email to parishioners: "Church COVID19 Update", 17 July 2020).

Which brings me to examine some statistics of a single church’s experience of viewer count over the COVID-19 period. LCM Churches on Sydney’s leafy North Shore established a Youtube channel and have published weekly online service offerings. The feed commences on 22 March 2020 with a Youtube recording of a livestream service and runs continuously to the Sunday prior to my writing of this post. The services are currently scheduled to continue as online services.

LCM Churches Youtube channel banner

Here is a table of Youtube views in reverse order:

And, then in graphical form through to most current date:

Now, I’ve applied a few tricks of the statistical trade in producing that table. So, 29 March and 5 April were offered as two services and I’ve added the view count of the two services together. For 12 April, which was Easter Sunday, I’ve taken Good Friday’s count which was slightly higher than Easter Sunday.

I thought of applying a factor to the view count. So, for instance, one could assume that in some households five persons (mum, dad and three children) were gathered together to watch. The problem with applying such a factor is that there needs to be allowance for multiple views and for those who click and do not watch the whole show. So, the Youtube count is probably indicative even though it is not true.

What the statistics say is this….while there has been a decline from the highpoint of 29 March [on 22 March people were watching live and their views are not counted so 29 March is the best indication of initial audience] the decline has stabilised by July 2020. Approximately 70% have abandoned their viewing.

In the first instance I’m not disturbed by the decline in viewing. I think that the decline in viewing is a secondary issue to the problem of Netflixing people and completely changing their expectation of church. Such people will return to physical attendance church with a changed view of church.

And, they are likely to be disappointed.

As Postman recognised each new media has changed consumption demands; telegraph>newspaper, newspaper>radio, radio>television, television>internet streaming. A church that does not change with its people will genuinely feel the effects of decline as people drift either away from church or to more engaging church offerings.

Shalom,
Ozhamada

[579 words]

Book review: The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Philip Yancey in a book; Soul Survivor, How my Faith Survived the Church, identifies how reading can sometimes deliver a message powerfully.  In reading some Christian titles Yancey recalls how:

"I felt the power that allows one human mind to penetrate another with no intermediary but a piece of flattened wood pulp.  I saw that writing could seep into crevices, bringing spiritual oxygen to people trapped in air-tight boxes". page 7, 2001, paperback. 

In reading The Cost of Discipleship I have experienced that power.  Bonhoeffer speaks wonderfully across the Christian communion.  Bonhoeffer is as relevant today as when he was writing the book in the 1930s.

Bonhoeffer’s book The Cost of Discipleship stands out in two ways.  Firstly, in the opening chapter; Costly Grace, and, secondly in the extended consideration of the Sermon on the Mount. 

Bonhoeffer is at his most ardent in the book’s opening chapter.  Bonhoeffer is making a passionate plea to the church.  He begs the church to take great care.  The church need ensure that God’s grace is dispensed respectfully.  At risk, is a cheap dispensation of the grace – preaching of God’s forgiveness where the hearer is not obliged to repentance.  Bonhoeffer’s warning is to the church yet the warning has application to people who hear the church’s message. 

The hearer need understand that offer of grace requires a response of the hearer.  It is in this way that grace is costly grace.  The hearer should respond with a genuine change of heart.  A person who has such a change of heart will willingly be yoked to Jesus as a follower.  Once yoked to Jesus the hearer willingly serves as a disciple in fulfilment of the ongoing mission of Christ’s people in the world.

Bonhoeffer’s extended consideration of the Sermon on the Mount – from the Gospel of Matthew – is a very worthy read.  Bonhoeffer identifies how Jesus employs the sermon as a way of heralding in his kingdom.  Perhaps, the heralding of the kingdom is exhibited best in Bonhoeffer consideration of a single verse – from Matthew 5:4:

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” 

Matthew 5:4 NIV

Bonhoeffer identifies that it is the disciples who will mourn the world and the ways of the world.  The disciples will mourn as they know that much more awaits the disciples in their eternal lives.  The disciples will also mourn because not everyone will heed God’s call to a repentant life.  They will mourn in yearning, as God does, for all men to be part of Christ’s kingdom.  And, in their mourning God will provide them their joyous eternal comfort.

 

I encourage you to read The Cost of Discipleship.  If pressed for time please consider reaching for the book to read just its first powerful chapter.  It may change your life!

 

Shalom, Ozhamada