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Terra Nullius

14/11/2022

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In recent weeks I have been doing a deep drive into local history. Rapidly it went from how did British settlement start in this area?: to what can be discovered about them?: to horror at how the native peoples were treated: to what was the unwritten side of the story?

The British had lived for centuries under an accepted cultural system.

The native peoples had lived for millennia under a completely different accepted cultural system; in fact you could say it was a road untraveled by any other culture.

The British and most other cultures worked on a notion of private property, and understood that this system accepted violence as a cost of civilisation. If you had something, you had to be prepared to defend it; and if you wanted to grow in importance then you had to usurp the property of others either by violence or coercion.

The native peoples came up with a completely different solution.

Instead of regular patterns of group vs group violence they chose mutual benevolence. Admittedly being human, disputes over mating rights did occur. However that is observable behaviour in the animal kingdom. What they chose was mutual survival. Part of this was choosing hospitality towards strangers to diffuse any possible violent intent.

Even now it is a difficult concept for Western minds to grasp.

The native people used what they needed from the land, and then moved on to a new location. They never depleted an area of resources. Tribes consisted of a number of family groups. Estimates for this location have a minimum number of 10 family groups, but there could have been 15 family groups, or even 20 family groups as part of one tribe. Survival depended on being part of a family group.

At certain times during the year and at agreed locations the whole tribe would gather together to conduct necessary tribal business including dispute resolution. When children neared the age of becoming an eligible mating partner, the men took the boys for initiation rites and the women took the girls for initiation rites. There were complicated rules to prevent relationships between close blood lines.

Picture an area of some 240 km2 and that would be a tribal area or country. Within it the various family groups are moving independently. Place names within country either describe geographical features, or the specific flora and fauna of a sub area, or the tribal purpose of the area. Therefore the next family group to pass where your family group has had a sojourn is most likely to be another family group within the tribe. Making sure your family group didn’t deplete the resources of a sub-area meant that the next family group to stay in that sub-area would have enough to survive.

You could think of this locality as a submerged mountain range. Which means getting anywhere other than along the waterline is going to be up hill and down dale, over rocks and timbered terrain with an occasional cave or hard rock surface. Therefore it made a lot of sense to leave tools made of natural materials where the next family group could find and use them than to carry them from place to place. In hospitality to each other on hard rock surfaces simple images of the safe game to hunt were painstakingly carved, or sometimes simple images conveying other messages to the initiated.

The other thing about this locality was the threat of flood, bushfire and drought. Anything built would either get washed away or burned away, so it truly was pointless to build anything permanent. But what was possible was working with the seasons and the locations of flora and fauna to obtain the best outcomes for everyone.

Here’s an example: In most places the tree line came down to the waterline. But there were areas that were flat, having been built up by natural sand deposits from the beach. These places were covered with native grasses due to specific cultivation. At the right time of year when the wind was in the necessary direction this flat land would be set on fire in such a way that the fire went towards the beach and burnt itself out for lack of fuel. The fire did two things: it dissuaded trees from growing and the fresh shoots of grasses after the fire would attract game animals. What this meant was that when the tribe gathered annually in that location to be together there was a plentiful food supply.

If someone was guilty of grave misdemeanor there was effective punishment. The miscreant was obliged to become the ‘first taster’ of the family group. Until a new miscreant emerged, the current miscreant became the go-to person to test whether a food stuff was poisonous or not, and if a food stuff was sufficiently ripe or not. The rest of the group would wait a day or two to see what happened to the first taster before sampling the food stuff themselves. As both a deterrent strategy and as a way of safeguarding the group from toxins it is quite brilliant.

What we often fail to appreciate is that this way of life was so successful that it didn’t need to change. It had remained a successful way of life through long stretches of drought and through long stretches of rain, through hail, storm and bushfire. It was a way of life sufficiently adaptable that paradigm change wasn’t necessary.

What this culture did do was to closely observe the natural environment. They studied the plants, the animals, the weather patterns and the landscape patterns. It wasn’t for interest, it was for survival. If you studied the life cycle and the migration patterns and eating patterns of the kangaroo then the hunt would be more successful. Not only did they study, but they used what they had learned in dancing in imitation of kangaroo and emu and through that medium passed knowledge to the younger members.

Stories were passed down from generation to generation which contained not only knowledge of the local animals but also moral lessons. On the surface they were simple and entertaining stories, but they had multiple layers of meaning. The deeper layers of meaning were only taught when a member was considered ready to learn them. This is not dissimilar to memory by association techniques.

These patterns of listening and observing the created world, and the stillness necessary for successful observation meant that this ancient culture was also in tune with the spiritual realms. Most tribes would be in tune with the good, the true and the beautiful, but some tribes would align with the darker elements in the spirit world. Not everything in the dreamtime is safe. Human beings wherever they reside are capable of both cruelty and gentleness; they thrive under good leadership and they suffer under poor leadership.

When the explorers arrived in 1770 with their western eyes they saw a natural landscape bereft of built structures; no stone structures like the Aztecs, no tents like the native Americans, no huts like the Polynesians. What they didn’t have eyes to see was a respectfully and minimally cultivated native landscape with everything needed for the survival of an ancient culture.
The description of the land as terra nullius was incorrect and wrong, yet convenient for a small island nation with dense population and many persons convicted of crime to punish. It was the first injustice upon which other injustices were perpetrated.

If not for help the native peoples gave to these strange idiots who were beginning to starve due to lack of local knowledge, the fledgling colony would not have survived. This pattern of help was repeated as explorations and new settlements began. When a convict absconded into the woods, or when someone got lost or shipwrecked, native tribes enabled them to survive.

Due to terra nullius the governor of the colony felt free to award large areas of land firstly to non-convicts, and later to convicts who had either proved themselves useful or who had served their time. No consideration was given to the what the native tribes had used these tracts of land for. The more important the ancient land use, the more likely native retaliation would be, and ancient weapons - lethal though they could be - were no match for guns.

The native population only had naturally occurring sugars in their diet from honey and berry-like fruit. Therefore the introduction of complex sugars and especially alcohol had severe effects including addiction and diabetes. Neither were they immune to the diseases that the settlers brought with them. Due to this many lives were lost prematurely.

When settlers began looking further afield than the Sydney colony there were two motives; one to find farm land with which to feed the colony and the other to exploit any other resources they found to the best of their ability. Hence the deforestation of cedar trees in the Brisbane Water area, and the commercial harvesting of seafood, particularly crayfish. No consideration was given to the impact of these exploitive activities upon the stable ecosystems and the well-trodden hunting and gathering routes of the native tribes. Local resistance was met with violence, written complaints to colonial authority, and with imprisonment and deportation. Some natives were tried for snatching the equivalent of a cigar out of a local colonial bigwig’s hands, and sentenced to deportation to Tasmania. It was commuted to two years’ hard labour in iron chains quarrying rock on a rocky outcrop island near Newcastle.

The net effect over several decades of occupation was the genocide of some native tribes and the decimation of other tribes. Since the early settlers had a very high male to female ratio of inhabitants many of the local tribeswomen were impregnated against their will and the resulting children suffered from not fully belonging to either culture. Such practices broke down the kinship bonds designed to transmit culture from one generation to the next.

The losses sustained by the native tribes are incalculable.

Sadly it has taken almost 235 years for us to begin to understand those immense losses.

This cannot have been God’s original plan.

Only the evil one is known for robbing, killing and destroying.
The losses of the early decades were followed up by the White Australia policy, and the systematic destruction of families by taking the children of native tribes to be raised in anglo-celtic families, and continued with other government policies which ultimately harmed more than helped.

So what could have been God’s original plan, and what’s behind this implacable hatred of the evil one for the native peoples of this land?

God’s plan must have been that we should learn the best from each other in order to build a completely new society based on respect for God, respect for creation, the cherishing of family life and the mutually beneficial sharing and conserving of resources.

Why the evil one’s hatred? Because this ancient culture was remarkably resilient against temptation to sin. Because it had so much good to teach and bequeath to humanity. Consider that greed, the root of all evil, did not have a foothold in this culture. Sloth is deadly in a survival culture, so it didn’t have much of a foothold either. That’s why the vehement desire for it to be snuffed out, disfigured and destroyed as quickly as possible.

Yet despite that hatred, despite the areas of genocide, the threads of that ancient culture are being slowly put back together with each artefact return, with each rediscovery of the wisdom in ancient practices and in ancient stories, and with each discovery of the gentle imprints upon the land by the ancient cultures. The deposit of good is beginning to be treasured as it should have been from the beginning.

What can we do to co-operate with God’s Plan?
​
We can ask God’s pardon and mercy upon all the sins and crimes perpetrated against the native peoples of this land.
We can ask God’s blessing upon the descendants of the native peoples of this land.
We can ask God to recompence the native peoples for all the losses and injustice they have suffered.
We can ask for God’s perfect will to be accomplished in this land.
We can work on eradicating greed and sloth from our own lives.
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Do a pulse check on your church culture

27/10/2020

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Obviously I have a particular organization, and a particular online event, in mind as I write. But these thoughts are applicable across the board, in parishes, dioceses, religious organisations etc.

So I dare you to come and do a pulse check on your church culture.

Some of you may have participated in the Pilgrimage to Pentecost that happened this year in the 6 weeks leading up to Pentecost 2020. Each week 2 tranches of talks were released, one on Sunday and one on Wednesday. You had to sign into a website portal to gain access to these talks, most of which were in the 20-30 minute range, from a wide range of international speakers, and a diversity of vocations. Each talk had a page with a brief description of the talk and the speaker, the link, and a place to leave comments. Participants left a healthy number of comments, 30 comments seemed to be about average for each talk, and the subset of commentators varied significantly from talk to talk (it wasn’t just the same people leaving the same comments). This is a healthy level of engagement.

Compare this to the final talk of a conference, shared on a religious organisation’s Facebook page, bearing in mind that the organisation would have to have upwards of 400 members. Admittedly the holding image for the video recording was uninspiring, but zero comments, 2 likes and 1 share? That is definitely Not a healthy level of engagement!

On the week after the conference the number of likes on YouTube for the talks were in single digits, and now three weeks later they are in the teens, and only one or two comments. Again, this is a very low level of engagement.

If you have proportionately low levels of engagement on social media for your major events, that means there is something amiss with your organisation’s culture.

If something is good, the natural response is to share it, and to share it with as many people as possible.
So either the event didn’t touch a chord with your people,
or your people are ignorant about social media,
or your people are not alert to the easy ways of promoting a message,
or a combination of all of them.

Organisations that value the means of social communication will automatically include a final note which says, ‘If you found this useful or valuable to you, please like and share this ….(insert type of media)… or leave a comment or subscribe so that you don’t miss out on future content”.

Because people do look at the number of views, reviews, likes and comments before committing themselves to watching something on YouTube, or downloading a game or app, or buying a book.

The next thing to remember is that when you post online content, be it website, Facebook, or anywhere else, the whole world is watching. This means that you need to rethink any member only information, and how things look to an outsider.

For example, doing a lovely 30 countdown to a major event as an encouragement for members to pray and fast for the event is great. But to then have radio silence as the event is happening is not great at all. If you want to make it even worse, barely refer to the event after it concludes. Those outsiders who have been watching your countdown on social media will now be completely baffled as to what all the fuss was about, and as a result will consider unfriending or unfollowing your organisation.

At a minimum you should be inviting online discussion after each talk of your event, and/or posting a brief video clip from each session as a discussion starter.

Do you realise that at secular events and at many religious events, that people choose to live tweet during the event? They do, it is a really good thing to do, and it should be encouraged. Not only because they capture the most important points of a talk/presentation, but because they also provide access for those unable to attend, and because it documents your event. These days it is true, if it didn’t make it to social media, then it didn’t happen (even if it did!).

If you don’t have ‘roving reporters’ sharing the best of your event, then you need to find the people you already have who are capable, training them up, and activating them. It will be harder if the event is online, but just as necessary. Screen shots are easy to produce and package for social media, if you know how. Encourage them to always add text, because an photo/image on its own says ‘we were having a great time, and you missed it’ whereas adding text says ‘we were having a great time, this is why, and I don’t want you to miss out on this part that touched my heart’.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to online events where a registration fee is paid.
The first school says only those who paid should have access. In that case, you need to set up some kind of simple login procedure to give access. Pilgrimage to Pentecost did it with a website link that required email address for access.
The second school of thought sees the registration fees as seed for harvest; the fees enable the event to happen (technical equipment, labour, administration, marketing, talent), but once the event is live and recorded, the expectation is that it gets shared to as many people as possible, so that the maximum number of people benefit.

If it is an event that has the capacity to bring someone closer to Jesus, surely you want to maximize those who experience it (in person and/or via recording).

There are hybrid models, where only the plenary sessions of an event get shared publicly, and the non-plenary sessions get recorded but not put online, and later the recordings get packaged for sale.

Or where a temporary YouTube channel is set up for an online event, permitting people to get to all the sessions in their own time, and re-watch them if desired. For this one, by its very nature, if it is on YouTube and not login protected, then anyone can share it. If the content is good, then such sharing should be encouraged.

Isn’t it better if 650 people or 830 people or 2000 people see the fruits of the hard work and many prayers rather than only the 400 who registered?

Some may object, ‘Why bother paying a registration fee if I can get it for free?’, but most will be happy to pay a registration fee (if it is reasonable and not exorbitant) if it is presented as seed money to get the event possible and happening, and even happier to pay that seed money if there are plans to share the good content of the event as widely as possible, and to enable those who could never afford it to participate.

Here's the pulse check:
*Do you have healthy levels of online engagement for your organisation’s size?
*Do you have reminders somewhere in the content, to like and share if they found it valuable?
*Do you encourage people to leave comments on your online content?
*Do you encourage your people to engage with your online content?
*Do you have enough members online?
*Do you encourage or discourage social media use in your organisation? (not talking about it at all is passive discouragement, talking about social media negatively is active discouragement)
*Are you on social media yourself? (lead by good example)
*Does your online content remember that it isn’t a members only forum?
*Do you promote online discussion after special events?
*Do you have any ‘roving reporters’ or ‘social media natives’?
*If so, have you activated them and given them a vision for this kind of ministry?
*Do you include text with your photos, or do you leave people to guess why you posted them?
*Do you have a plan and a vision for maximizing the number of people who can access your events, your content and your message?

Now is the time to start doing something about it, if you weren't able to answer Yes (honestly, and with evidence to back it up) to just about all of them. A great number of the people you want to reach with the Gospel message are online, but you have to be intentional in your online activities in order to reach them. 
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Of bubbles and differences

30/5/2019

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Bear with me while I twist a few strands of thought from wildly different places into hopefully a coherent whole.

The first strand of thought comes from artist Nicholas Wilton (@art2life_world) and the series of three videos on design, value and colour. In them he demonstrated quite effectively that it is the differences, and relative differences of shape, contrast and saturation that make an artwork interesting enough to obtain that elusive 'Sold' sticker.

The second strand of thought comes from the natural world, designed by God. In His universe there is infinite variety, even in the world of flowers. Even when we think of gardens, the image that comes to mind isn't of neat rows of the same flower, but the riotous mix of flowers in an English country garden.

The third strand of thought comes from Pope Francis, and his latest apostolic exhortation, 'Chrisus vivit', written to all the Church but especially to young people.

181. Think about it: if someone tells young people to ignore their history, to reject the experiences of their elders, to look down on the past and to look forward to a future that he holds out, doesn’t it then become easy to draw them along so that they only do what he tells them? He needs the young to be shallow, uprooted and distrustful, so that they can trust only in his promises and act according to his plans. That is how various ideologies operate: they destroy (or deconstruct) all differences so that they can reign unopposed. To do so, however, they need young people who have no use for history, who spurn the spiritual and human riches inherited from past generations, and are ignorant of everything that came before them.

185. In this regard, I would note that “many Synod Fathers coming from non-Western contexts pointed out that in their countries globalization is bringing with it forms of cultural colonization that sever young people from their cultural and religious roots. The Church needs to make a commitment to accompanying these young people, so that in the process they do not lose sight of the most precious features of their identity”.

186. Today, in fact, we see a tendency to “homogenize” young people, blurring what is distinctive about their origins and backgrounds, and turning them into a new line of malleable goods. This produces a cultural devastation that is just as serious as the disappearance of species of animals and plants. For this reason, in addressing young indigenous people gathered in Panama, I encouraged them to “care for your roots, because from the roots comes the strength that is going to make you grow, flourish and bear fruit”.

Our differences matter, in fact they seem to be clearly willed by God.

Our differences do not prevent unity.
Our differences help us come up with better answers to life's problems, answers that last the test of time and transcend regional cultures.

This is why bubbles are a problem.

The national plebiscite in late 2017 brought home to me how easy it is for us to get into bubbles of social media where the only views that come across our screens are those that we agree with. Partly this is due to the social media algorithms, yet my own choices of what to like, who to follow and who (and why) to unfollow are very significant. When you are in a bubble you get a very big shock to discover that the majority of the world disagrees with you.

In the wake of the recent federal election I read of a young woman who was shocked to discover that the climate change eco-friendly militantly feminist world view she shared with many others from inner city suburbs as a 'no-brainer' package of values was definitely not shared by the rest of the country. Sadly she now seems to be on a quest to put the rest of the country in touch with these values that she assumes will be embraced by everyone who comes across them. I fear she is in for more unwelcome shocks.

It is so easy to get into a bubble without noticing it happening.
It is far easier to see where other people are in bubbles that to see where we ourselves are in them.

We live in tension between the God who infinitely values differences (no two snowflakes, finger prints and animal pelts are the same) and humanity who wants things safe, predictable and the same.

Differences make us richer, uniformity makes us poorer.

The challenge is to fight against the forces that want uniformity, and to keep our hearts and social media accounts open to those who think in ways alien to our world views.

Definitely this is not an easy task,
but it is crucial to determining the kind of future we are building for generations to come.

May the Holy Spirit help and guide us. Amen.
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Divine Renovation Conference Tuesday 12 June 2018 Breakout Session with Fr Simon Lobo and Ron Huntley

16/8/2018

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This part of the #DR18 Conference took place in an auditorium on the nearby university campus in Halifax, Canada.

This is a broad brush transcription. Thankfully (as at 9 Aug 2018) this video from #DR18 is still available on Livestream via North Broadcast Group; however it takes around 12 minutes for the sound recording quality to settle down and the session to start.

Fr Simon Lobo is the current pastor of St Benedict's Parish, Halifax, having taken over from Fr James Mallon. Fr Simon is the author of 'Divine Renovation Apprentice' and a member of the religious order called the Companions of the Cross. Fr Simon can be found on Twitter @frsimoncc and you can watch him tell his vocation story https://companionscross.org/priests/fr-simon-lobo and how he came to be the pastor of St Benedict's Parish https://www.companionscross.org/latest-news/fr-simon-lobo-cc-appointed-pastor-st-benedict-parish

Ron Huntley has been the director of evangelisation at St Benedict's Parish, Halifax, and a member of the Senior Leadership Team. He is currently coaching parish leadership teams through the Divine Renovation Association and Network, and speaking internationally. Ron can be found on Twitter @ron_huntley and on Instagram @rmhunts and you can find his Divine Renovation coaching material at https://www.divinerenovation.tv/authors/ron-huntley or read a bit about his presentations at Proclaim 2018 in Brisbane July 2018 http://catholicleader.com.au/news/canadian-parish-coach-says-stop-catechising-start-evangelising-at-proclaim

Jen Ferrier: Welcome! St Benedict's Parish (SBP) changed my life. I used to sit in the last pew in order to sneak out early because I didn't want to be asked by the priest to do anything. My heart changed through attending Alpha in 2013. Many contributed to this work in my heart. Since then I have run Alpha at SBP for 5 years as co-ordinator evangelisation. God doesn't ask us to go it alone. The title of this session is 'Parish leadership is a team sport'.

Fr Simon Lobo: Welcome! Thank you for being here. It is a joy to be here with you, and I acknowledge the sacrifice to come and the investment needed to come. In seminary we did lots of courses on philosophy and theology, practical stuff on confessions and Mass, and about half a course on homiletics. There are 3 big areas we are called to serve in – priest, prophet and king. The laity is also called to serve in these areas through baptism. A priest has a special call to the kingly role of governance and leadership. In seminary we did a lot on 1 (priest), a little on 2 (prophet) and nil on 3 (king).

I had no concept of leadership. My parents didn't have any either. You don't know what you don't know. I had no sense of leadership.

Ron Huntley: Leadership is one of my favourite topics. Business can be just as toxic as church. Jesus gave us example of how to lead well. At SBP we talk about leadership all the time.

But what's the definition of leadership?

Leadership at St Benedict's Parish is answering the call to influence, inspire and equip individuals and teams to form disciples who joyfully live out the mission of Jesus Christ.

We have learned from many people, books, resources etc but we still mess up a bit.

Think about your parish. Leadership at ……. parish is ………………

On a scale of 1 to 5, how well is your church doing leadership? Mostly 2's. How many want a 5? How many believe that a 5 is possible? Vision is one of the things that gets us from a 2 to a 5.

Vision

Fr Simon Lobo: Vision, it's so central to leadership. I have a friend, a father of a family, who is an engineer who started his own business as a consultant. Gradually he worked out that he could only bill for a limited number of hours a week. He came to the conclusion 'that there had to be something beyond me' and 'I need to think bigger than myself'. So he invited and inspired others to join him, and he hired people from families in the church. It worked. They are all successful because this engineer could see beyond.

Priests in parishes can be the bottleneck. I was the glass ceiling, the bottleneck, in campus ministry. Growth was good at the start, but then it slowed down when it reached the limit of what I could handle.

'Vision is a picture of the future that produces passion' – Bill Hybels

Think to the horizon, way off to the distance. On the Camino Way there is a place called Finisterre, 'Earth's End', where Christopher Columbus looked out over the horizon some 500 years ago and said, 'I wonder if there's something out there, let's go for it'.

Part of getting people from here to there is helping people to see that we can't stay here, and saying, let's go there.

I was kind of forced into this a year ago, when I was asked to give a vision talk at our vision summit to 100 key leaders of the parish. What do I say? I'm a practical, feet on the ground kind of guy. I had to give myself permission to dream and to think big. I thought I had to cook up a vision within myself, but I realised that God has a vision for the parish. So I went to Him, before the Blessed Sacrament, and said, 'God I don't have a vision, I need a vision, help me'. Then the thought came, there have been 7 years of SBP history, what would 7 years in the future (2024) look like? At the moment there are about 50 people this past year who have had a significant conversion to Jesus Christ, that's about one a week. What if by 2024 that could be one person a day? And things flowed from there.

Think of a graph where the vertical axis is skills and the horizontal axis is time in leadership – or increasing responsibility in leadership. The need for technical skills decreases as time/responsibility in leadership increases. The need for casting vision skills increases as time/responsibility in leadership increases. The need for emotional intelligence skills or the ability to work with people and deal with difficult people is low in junior leadership, extremely high in middle leadership and medium in senior leadership.

This is why we need to keep growing in the ability to cast vision.

Describe a vision for your parish, or ministry, a picture with passion. What gets you excited?

Some of the answers from the auditorium were:
• People expect God to show up with miracles every week
• A full church for daily Masses, and all three campuses full of activity (outreach, bible studies, prayer groups)
• An apostolic community with an outwards focus
• A vibrant church with lively Christians, where the best of them are known in town and regionally as the best musicians, are regularly asked for articles in newspapers and are influencing politicians for the good behind the curtain
• Helping the family grow closer to Christ
• We are a university town, a place where the young people seek us out and find relevance, where we can show them the 'porta caeli' the gateway to heaven.

Ron Huntley: In the 2016 series of America's Got Talent there was a dad who did well, whose regular job was in nursing. He was asked why he entered the show. He said that when you are in survival mode you stop dreaming. I wanted to show my kids that if I can live my dream, maybe they can too.

A small vision doesn't get us from 2 to 5. I need to be a part of something amazing, otherwise I'll stay at sports. Great vision attracts and keeps great people. You can't do the vision without great people.

What we do is not easy. We don’t know how to do anything easy. This is not just for priests and pastors, but for ministry leaders too. I need your vision to be huge, exciting, compelling, dangerous. Start dreaming ridiculously God-sized dreams. What would happen if…?

57 people came to Christ this year. His vision: that in 7 years that becomes 1 a day. I want to be a part of that. How, I don’t know, but I want to be a part of that.

Fr Simon Lobo: It seems possible, but it also seems bold. We will figure it out on the way. We want healed, redeemed people who have experienced Jesus.

Ron Huntley: The vision statement is a signpost – it does not exhaust the vision. The vision is bigger than that.

Structure

Structure matters. Consider the local parishes within your area, would I be right in saying that not one of them has a structure set up for mission? If everything goes through the pastor, that is ridiculously ineffective. Fr James Mallon is naturally a delegator. Our goal is to do the very thing God is calling us to do.

It may even start with structure. Are we set up for mission? If your structure doesn't move with your mission, you will soon be on the verge of collapse. It was a crisis like that which forced us to re-evaluate our structure and leadership. Structure has to be fluid and out ahead of our mission, evaluating its fitness for our mission every few months.

Most places have people who have been in the same ministry for a very long time. Are their gifts still suited to this ministry? Do they still have passion and vision for this ministry? Is that vision in alignment with the overall vision for the parish? If so they should continue. If not we need to help them find something new where this will be true for them.

If I get in the way of the vision, I will step down. If I am part of the problem, I need to know – in order to move, to change, or to get out of the way. We can't let ego get in the way of the mission of the church.

When I took over pastoral ministry, we divided it this way, if it has a heartbeat I deal with it, and if it doesn't have a heartbeat then Rob deals with it.

Jesus invested disproportionate time with Peter, James and John. They were like His Senior Leadership Team (SLT). The rest of the apostles, the other 9, they were like His staff. The 72 disciples, they were like ministry leaders.

Things must percolate from the bottom up, not from the top down. We don't use the word 'report', we use the word 'support'. Jesus washed their feet – this is what leadership looks like in the kingdom of God. There is nothing I won't do for you. How can I support you? There is no room for ego. This is using authority to love and to serve.

Do you know who you need to support? Or are called to support? It is about how many others you are raising up. Your job is to unleash people. It is critical that we get this right.

Recently I had been having trouble finding time to connect with a friend, but I kept on trying. This friend told me I was only going to get let off the hook if I was doing what great leaders do. What do great leaders do? They invest their 1 unit of energy in places that get them 5 units of return.

Remember the parable of the talents? Three people were given 1, 2 and 5 talents, and they came back with 1, 4 and 10 talents. And the one talent was given to the guy who had 10 talents. Leadership is about unleashing people and about allowing all the other gifts to flourish. As leaders we are not to be bottlenecks but bottle openers.

We must think about leadership differently.

What gets in the way? Entitlement, ego, turf, toxic personal relationships, pride, competition, burn out, lack of self-awareness etc. We need to aim the sling, and so straight after it.

Each of us has 3.5 blind-spots. A weakness is different to a blind-spot. Weaknesses are things I know I am bad at. A blind-spot is something I think I am good at, but I'm actually bad at. Ages ago I worked in a small business for Ken, he was the boss and I asked him to be a reference for me when I applied for other jobs. So my potential new employers called him up and asked Ken what I needed to grow in. He's impatient. When I found out I initially felt hurt because Ken is my friend, but do you know what? He said that because it is true, and I had no idea it was true. It is so important that we figure this stuff out.

The senior leadership team (SLT) enables us to invest in each other, and to learn to trust enough, for us to get to that place where we can deal with this stuff.

Think about a time when you were on a team, and everything just flowed. On that team there was someone who made you the best you could be. Who was that person? You need them or someone like them on your team, who is like you in vision, but who is unlike you in skill set. Your SLT needs 4-5 people at the most, and is very different to a staff team. The idea is that is becomes a safe place to call each other out and call each other on.

Fr Simon Lobo: You probably have good people in your parish, who would love and support you and come along side you. Blind-spots: ask people who are close to you what they are, and give them permission to tell you. It is a dangerous thing to do, but people who really care about you want you to be better. Ron has done this for me. I can start to micro manage and not even be aware of it. What I think is efficient and focussed can go too far, far enough to suck the fun out of a meeting. But he said it in a loving way, 'You are a fun guy, but you don't often lead fun'.

Most people will lie to a priest's face. They will not be honest unless you build a relationship with them, and then ask them to be honest with you, and don’t punish them for it afterwards. It is helpful to see me through someone else's eyes. It is still hard for lay people to tell the truth to us, unless we actually submit ourselves to them.

Meetings

An excellent resource for this topic is Patrick Lencioni's book, 'Death by Meeting'.

People will happily sit through a 2 hour movie where they are passive and not based in reality – but put them in a 2 hour meeting and it's 'get me out of there as fast as possible'. The reason is because they are passive and not engaged. The key to a good story is conflict and tension, that's what gives excitement to the story, and to meetings.

Our Senior Leadership Team meetings have healthy conflict, and a nerf gun to add fun. It is a safe place. With Ron, Fr James, Rob and Kate in these meetings, we actually mine for conflict. If we are discussing a topic, and you are being quiet, I want to know what is going on. If you are disagreeing with the proposals tell us, tell us now. Don’t wait until afterwards. It doesn't have to get personal. It can get close to the edge, but we check in with each other later, 'How are you doing?' etc. We have different processing speeds.

Meetings are so essential. Patrick Lencioni says to avoid meetings would be like a mechanic saying that he loved being a mechanic, but if he could only get out of the time in the garage working on cars it would be great.

For leaders, priests and lay people, our leadership, our workshops happen so often in the context of meetings. I've had to have a change of heart on this, and to grow in awareness that I can't just slough these off, these are really important. We are in the business of relationships. And when we don’t meet with other people what happens very easily is that people who love Jesus and who care about the mission of the church, if they don’t meet regularly, there can be drift. Drift allows space for two visions to open up, and where there are 2 visions, there is division. Division and false assumptions can happen unless we take time investing in each other for the sake of the kingdom. It is that important.

There are several different kinds of meetings.

Since we have 160 people in hospitality ministry, there are going to have to be lots of meetings, small, medium and large, to keep that ministry going, thriving and unified.

There are different purposes for different meetings. Due to our desire to be practical we have prepared a handout that contains samples of what some of our meetings look like. Looking at the structure of those meetings helps people visualise what we are talking about. I don't want to encourage boring meetings.

Generic team meeting. We have a tendency to go straight to the how to deal with the urgent. While those urgent things have to dealt with, we have to make sure that we make room for the important.

Our Ministry Leadership Team meetings go for 2 hours. They start with prayer. We put all the topics on the white board. Then we each share a high and a low from our life/ministry around the table. Sometimes if there is a low low we stop and say, let's pray for each other. We then do some kind of development eg focus on a leadership principle, do book studies (eg the book, Made to Stick for improving communication), we prioritise the list and work through the list in order of importance, and then we end with an extended time of prayer and worship or reflect on the upcoming Sunday readings.

Clergy team meetings are a bit shorter.

One on one meetings. Ron has challenged me on this. What do you mean by them? Who are the key people I need to connect with and support? These are the people who will give the 5/10 fold return on time spent with them.

The format for them is to start with prayer, and then a topic list, followed by time for personal sharings about the joys and burdens of life and ministry. Then there is time for crucial conversations eg Hey, I caught you doing something amazing and I want you to know why or to address something that felt a bit harsh. There is stuff you can do one on one that you can't do with an audience. Then we talk about the stuff on the lists. We ask 2 questions, 'What are your top priorities for this week?' and 'How can I support you?'. We invest in people in an intentional way to free people up to be great.

The Senior Leadership Team meets weekly for 3-4 hours.

Ministry Leadership Teams meet weekly for 2 hours: that's the Pastoral Leadership team, the Operations team, the Clergy team and the Communications team.

One on one meetings happen weekly.

Once a month we have an all staff meeting (15-25 people), with prayer and personal sharing.

Ron Huntley: You can't do all this without stopping some other stuff. Priest vs pastor requires a paradigm shift from executing ministry to raising up other leaders to minister. Even with our staff we had to help them change from doers of ministry to leaders of ministry, and we had to form and shape them differently. And it was not easy, because you were probably hired because of what you are good at. But if you are good at it, you are going to have to stop doing as much and you are going to have to raise up other people around you, and that is a different skill set.

When I was director of evangelisation (a.k.a. pastoral ministries), the pastoral leadership team included the leaders of the Alpha team, the Kids team, the Youth team, the Discipleship Groups team and the Sacraments and Liturgy teams.

Having one parish over multiple sites (or campuses) requires thinking differently.

People are not used to being supported, they are used to being told what to do. When leading from the bottom up we need to create places where relationships matter. We need to invest in each other, so that we can dream again and move towards our mission. That's a completely different paradigm shift, so you need to speak into that for a while before you start creating – or finding ways to create – natural teams.

If you have 2 church sites in your parish, who is the natural leader in church A (and in church B) with the natural capacity to influence, inspire and raise others up? You have to invest in them. You have to re-address your structure and then get creative because you only have so many hours a week. So you have to figure out , 'How am I going to do this in a way that's sustainable for me?'

You have to look for the people who are really good at leading. Most of our best leaders didn't see themselves as leaders. They had humility, people respected them, and they respected and loved others, but they didn't see themselves as leaders, yet people would follow them and look up to them. These are the people I am talking about. You have to figure out who your Peter, James and John are, and how we are going to structure this around those people so that we can do great things. Not who has got what job title.
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With multiple sites there is a tendency to want to get an equal amount of people from each site. And what ends up happening is that you end up creating these councils (parish, finance etc). What happens is that people come in with an agenda of their location to advance and protect. What we need to start with is vision. Where does God want us to go? And then, who are the people who have bought into that vision? Because at Senior Leadership Team if people are fighting over the division of resources between sites, that's not going to work. As Fr James Mallon says, if you have more than one vision, then you have division. You need people who are bought in whole heartedly, not people who are Yes men; people who will challenge you, but they need to be people who have bought into the vision of where we are heading on this journey.

What does success look like? I know what you want, but before you tell me what you want, what do you think success looks like? Ask your staff, what do you think you get paid to do? It's a really good question. Ask them, 'What does success look like?'

John 15: I am the vine, you are the branches. The fruit bearing branches he prunes to make them bear more fruit. It begs the question, 'What does fruit look like?' So often we define ourselves by the branches, busy-ness or our programs, by how much time we have, by how much time we don’t have. 'I'm really busy'. So? Are you fruitful? I don’t really care how busy you are. Are you fruitful? How do you know? What does fruit look like? What's working? What's not working? How has it grown?

Tell me your vision of what fruitfulness looks like, and it had better be compelling. If it is, let's get behind it and structure it for success. We spend a lot of time in the Divine Renovation Network helping people figure that out, because there's no cookie cutter approach since you are working with real people and real skills and real gifts, and that looks different depending on your leaders.

Most of the people on staff weren't staff before, and we didn't always have a staff of 15. And it grew. The more successful we were, the more we were able to grow. Most of the people who came on as staff, came on staff from within the fruits of the ministry. (talking to Fr Simon) Think of all your hires lately – they have all been in the Game Plan.

Fr Simon Lobo: 8 years ago we had 5 or 6 people on staff, and that was already a bigger staff than some parishes. It has grown. Jen is an example of that, someone who came to us through Alpha and eventually got hired to help lead Alpha.

Ron Huntley: Alpha as a course is mediocre. Alpha as a culture is unbeatable, because it becomes the tool by which you evangelise, show hospitality, grow people and ministry, and develop a leadership pipeline. That's a huge secret of Alpha. Please don’t tell anybody.

It is a leadership pipeline if done well. Think about it. When's the last time you had dinner 11 weeks in a row with someone? It doesn't happen. So what if after those 11 weeks you really get to know them? And you see in them, this is someone of capacity. So you ask them, 'Would you like to be on team?' They say, 'No, I'm not a team member.' Then you say, 'No really, you're wonderful, you bond with people, they love you, you love them, just be a helper, you don't even have to say anything.' 'Oh, I could do that'. And then they come back and we have dinner for another 11 weeks – but this time in ministry with us. Then their confidence grows and we say, 'You were fantastic, you seemed to really get this, it looked like you had a lot of fun, didn't you? Listen, I'm wondering if you would be a co-host. Like, I'm going to be here as host. But sometimes I can't be here, so would you be willing to facilitate the conversation? I'll help you, I'll teach you how to do it.' Then another 11 weeks we have dinner together. And then we say, 'Hey, you look like you really enjoyed that too, having so much fun. Would you be willing to come back as a host? So over a 2 year period we are investing in these people. We are seeing what they are made of - and that is how we grow leaders.

We identify and grow leaders through Alpha because we meet with them over and over again, and then we serve in ministry with them, and that's why it's such an amazing tool when done properly.

It is easier to give someone a fish than to teach them how to fish, because that takes time. And sometimes you teach them to fish and then they don't want to do it anymore and leave. It is painful to have all that time and energy lost, but it is the right thing to do.

Alpha is what gives us the framework with which to do that. It has taught us how to identify and raise up others. It is really important because in the Divine Renovation Network we have people too busy for meetings because they are in too much ministry. If you are too busy doing ministry, how are you going to lead? And if you have never raised anybody up before because you've been too busy doing it, that's OK, but we are going to change that, because you have to change that.

The pastoral leadership team, I was responsible for supporting them. I would meet with them 2 hours every week as a team. And we would do the High Lows, and we'd do praise and worship and continue to grow in surrendering our lives to Christ, and then we would talk about what happened at the last SLT meeting (so that people are engaged to know exactly what was going on), then we would unpack some leadership principles that were relevant to all of us and then leave. So no minutes necessary.

Then I'd have my one on one meetings with people, every week for an hour. How are things going? What are you working on that you are excited about? Give me some wins. What are you procrastinating on? We need to know what people are good at and what people are bad at – both. What do you need to be doing in the next 3 weeks to be successful? What's it going to look like? What are you putting off? Why are you putting it off? Interesting. So you need to have a conversation with that person. So let me coach you on that, and we'll role play it to help you. When are you going to have that conversation? Hold them accountable. All that is happening in the one on one meetings, so I'm taking notes, but I wouldn't call them minutes.
So the next time I sit down with that person, I'll say 'How did you go with that meeting?' 'I didn't have it.' 'Why not?' 'I chickened out.' 'OK, remember why you need to have it. You're having it this week. I'm going to pray for you and I'm going to text you half an hour before that meeting because I need to hold your feet to the fire because I care about you and that's an important meeting.' 'Yes, it is.' 'OK, terrific.' So we don't need any minutes for that.

When we have our Senior Leadership Team meetings we make a whole list of things on the board about things we need to talk about, we prioritise them, and then we rip through as many as we can. We usually don't always get through them all. But we get through the most important ones first. So prioritise.

And then everything we talk about, we need to say 'who is doing what by when' because most organisations have an issue with executing not with strategizing – because there is no accountability.

We don’t talk about things just for fun, we do that at the pub. There we solve all the world's problems and we walk away feeling good about ourselves, and nothing gets done. That's not what we do at SLT meetings. Everything we talk about we determine who is doing what by when, and then next week when we meet again we say, 'Hey, Fr Simon, you were going to talk to Deacon ………., did you get a chance to do that?' 'Yes, I did.' 'What happened?' 'O cool, that's awesome; dealt with; perfect.' 'No, I didn't.' 'Why not?' 'He was away, and I couldn't.' 'Are you going to do it this week?' 'Yes, I am.' 'Terrific.' And it goes back up on the accountability items.

A lot of this stuff is broken down in the Divine Renovation Association, we talk about this stuff on the podcasts and things like that.

Fr Simon, what do you do as regards minutes and structure for clergy?

Fr Simon Lobo: Similar. It's probably not necessary to take minutes. But in a finance council meeting somebody is the secretary to take minutes for that kind of a meeting. Typically we don't. What we do though, our primary way of recording what happens is we do a lot of white boarding. We have white boards in pretty much every single meeting room. And as we are writing we might have a column of items that we are trying to get through – action items – that are assigned to different people, 'who is doing what by when, and how we are going to follow up'. And then we'll take a photo of the white board and email it around to everybody, so everybody can see that.

We have also tried having Google spreadsheets that we share with everybody with a running list of action items – that's another way to do it. That's a perennial issue, of 'How do you execute?'

Volunteers. Leadership Summits are another great tool that we use. Another meeting, you could say. We do them 3 times a year. It is a morning, a Saturday morning, say from 9am to 12 noon and it is action packed. It is so much fun. We get about a 100 of our not just people in ministry, but our ministry leaders, people who are leading people in ministry – and the vast majority of them are not on staff. Pretty much none of them are on staff, but our staff come to this as well.

We spend the morning firstly in prayer, then we have a fun ice-breaker, and then a key vision talk to re-connect us to the Why. Why are we doing this? Why are any of us, whether you are a lector, or on a hospitality team, or part of the grief ministry, or in Alpha, why are we doing this? And usually it is the pastor who gives this talk, because whether I like it or not, my voice matters on this. It goes back to the very beginning, vision casting, back to the why we are doing this and where we are going. And then we have a break and some snacks and then have some kind of an exercise, like a practical leadership exercise to get people growing in their leadership skills. It could be on the theme of 'How do you apprentice people?' or 'How do you develop a leadership pipeline?' where you are moving people along from one step to the next, or it could be a fun exercise to grow in self-knowledge.

Back in September we looked at Patrick Lencioni's book 'The Ideal Team Player', talking about the 3 virtues of an ideal team player – somebody who is humble, hungry and smart. By which he means people smart or emotional intelligence. Could this be a helpful schematic when you are thinking of the kind of people that we want to have involved in our ministry or leading our ministry?

Then we end with an extended time of worship and often a bit of prayer where we pray with one another as leaders to pray into whatever the needs are.

That's a really fun way, and people are actually delighted to give up their Saturday morning to come to it because it is just so rich and it is a way of investing in all of those key people who can then have a 5 fold return as they invest in their own ministries.

Culture

Ron Huntley: And that really helps us to change our culture of leadership. Changing your culture is really important. Peter Drucker, business author and speaker, said culture eats strategy for breakfast. So I sometimes see people taking our best practices and programs and applying them in their church, getting very little result and saying that doesn't work. You missed the point! You don't understand our culture. If you don't understand our culture and you take our best practices and programs and try to implement them you will probably not do very well.

And you will probably keep getting the results you've always gotten because you don't understand culture. Culture eats strategy for breakfast.

But there's another part to that I learned last year: bad leadership eats culture for lunch.

So we have a great culture at St Benedict's Parish and that story I shared earlier with Fr Simon and I, with a lot of passion and very good intent, started telling people who were already in a structure and supported.

We weren't sure whether all of that was going to come crumbling down because of his leadership. We didn't know. Because we didn't know him as a leader, and it could have.

How many of you have been a pastor or have seen a church in your diocese that was just booming and they changed the pastor and everything went to pot? Bad leadership eats culture for lunch.

So leadership matters, disproportionately unfortunately.
Leadership matters disproportionately.
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There are 2 things we believe we have to invest in disproportionately – evangelisation and leadership. Because if we do those things really well, everything else gets backfilled. So we are really intentional about creating a culture of leadership at St Benedict's Parish.

So how is culture created? 2 ways: by what we reward and what we tolerate. How many of you have people at your church who are toxic and yet serving in ministry? So you are tolerating their attitudes? (Nodding) Yeah. And what does that do? It creates a culture. And if I'm at your church and I see people behave like morons in leadership and you haven't done anything about it – I don't trust you. I don't trust your leadership. You don’t have what it takes to create a safe place for people to thrive. I can't follow you. Why would I follow you? We all know that it is as obvious as heck that this person is toxic and you're not doing anything about it. I can't trust your leadership.

That's why we can't tolerate bad attitudes and bad behaviour and bullying and all those other things that happen even in the church. We can't tolerate it. Because if we do, it defines our culture and we get the very church we deserve, and that's problematic.

The other thing I see, often times we don't celebrate enough. And I'm constantly challenging people in the Divine Renovation Network to catch people doing things well and celebrating it.

The other day in Senior Leadership Team, we had 2 new pastor priests with us interning and I was my zealous self and not very patient and one of the new priests asked a question, and boy did I ever respond in ways that let them know that was a really bad idea. And I didn't really notice I did it, and I kept going. And the next day Fr Simon said, 'Ron, can I talk to you for a couple of minutes?' 'Yeah, sure, what's up?' 'Remember in the Senior Leadership Team the other day?' 'Yes, it was a good meeting.' 'But remember when Fr ……. brought up this point?' 'Yeah?' 'Remember how you responded? I thought you were a little heavy handed, and I couldn't help but think that if I was new, and in a team like that, I would have felt really uncomfortable.' I said, 'Oh my gosh, what have I done? I can't believe I did that. I totally did that. Thank you so much for telling me.' I left his office and went straight up to the other priest's office and I sat down and said, 'I need to ask for your forgiveness' and I told him what I did. He didn't even remember. 'Oh yeah, Oh gosh, I never thought about that again.' 'Well, that wasn't nice, that wasn't kind, and I need to ask for your forgiveness. I am so sorry I did that and I'm going to work really hard to try not to do that again.' He said, 'You didn't have to apologise, but I'm really glad you did, because it just shows me that you guys really do want to be honest, be sincere and own your mistakes. Thanks a lot, it meant a lot.'

So guess what we started doing? We started telling people about that story. We started celebrating that story. Why? Because it is the exact culture we want to build.

We want to reward the story by telling others. That's why I'm telling you right now. I'm telling you that story because I want to reward his courage to have that conversation with me. He loved me that much that he wasn't going to let me be a moron, - even though I am from time to time – he's not going to let me do that. It's going to happen, but he's not going to let me continue to do it and have that impact effect other people. He loves me too much for that. He loves our mission too much for that. He loves our values too much to do that – and so he would risk having that conversation with me and making me aware of one of my blind-spots, so that I could own it. And that's worth celebrating. That's why we tell the story.

What stories do you tell? What are you rewarding in your church? Think about that. What would it look like if as a staff you decided we are going to send out one email a day, as random encouragement to somebody who has gone above and beyond, and blind copy the other people on staff, so that we can start to create a culture of celebrating cool things?

One of the things I used to do is that as people were ending their Alpha time – because we boot everybody off eventually, because it is not a club, it is something you move through so we develop you and we send you out into other ministries. Alpha is not a club. It is not a place where people get stuck. It's a place where people move through or it is not going to transform your church at all. And so as people are transferring out I would often send a note to Fr James and I would say, 'Hey Fr James, I want you to know how great Jen is on the team, she goes above and beyond, she's great at leading people, she's great at calling people and setting them up. She takes no credit for their success and their impact, and as a result she is raising people up all over our church. She is finishing her time at Alpha and I just want you to know how much I appreciate her and how blessed we are to have her at our church.' And I would carbon copy (c.c.) that person.

What do you think that feels like for them? To know that somebody notices that they're going above and beyond so much that they are writing to our pastor, and heaping praise on them to the pastor, and just happened to c.c. them. What do you think that does in terms of celebrating and creating a culture? Unstoppable.

What else do we do Fr Simon in terms of the culture end?

Fr Simon Lobo: It is time to wrap up. There's a great book called 'Crucial Conversations: Tools for talking when the stakes are high' by Patterson, Grenny, McMillan and Switzler. I was getting a bit misty on the side as you shared that Ron. It's so beautiful to be able to have relationships with people that you can be that honest, right? Because we desire health, that's how badly we desire to be healthy.

All of us have bad days. I love your expression Ron, 'It is one thing for a leader to have a bad day, it is not OK for a leader to have a bad week, and if they have a bad month – watch out.'

Because everything rises and falls on leadership and the impact that we have as church leaders, whether as ordained or lay people, it's so huge, so significant, and let's use our leadership for good.

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Book Review: Spearhead by Pat Keady

26/1/2018

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​There's a lot to like about Pat Keady's book 'Spearhead: Reshaping the Church to Engage the Word'. But there's a dangerous 10% which concerns me greatly. Let's focus on the good stuff first:

When I first heard about this book I was excited because there has been prophetic word over the last 6 months about God releasing anointing upon writers and songwriters, and this book began when Pat Keady woke very early one morning with an impetus to write from the Holy Spirit. So I really wanted to read it.

The font is easy to read, the paper has a lovely glossy feel and the graphic design layout is beautiful.

The first half of the book is particularly good. For anyone wanting an easy to digest synthesis of what God has been saying through Pope Francis and various parish renewal movements over the last 3 years, it is brilliant, particularly if you delight in Australian idioms. If you are deep in the trenches of parish renewal, in the first half you won't be reading anything new, but you might be reading it from a fresh perspective.

However, as a book to invite someone from the sidelines into the trenches, that's where its true value is to be found.

Two insights I found particularly helpful. The first is the story of Jonathan, son of Saul, and his armour-bearer from 1 Samuel 14 about how the two of them trusting in the help of God made a daring foray into enemy Philistine territory and began a battle that inspired traitors to turn back to allegiance to God's people and eventually involved the whole army of Israel in victory. A few committed people doing something brave and unusual, but filled with faith, can have a very big impact.

The second is an insight into the story of Pentecost, Acts 1, about how God met people where they were at by giving His Apostles and disciples the gift of the languages of the people. It wasn't about various languages now becoming a single language.

Pat uses this story to make his case that we have to learn the cultures of the groups we wish to evangelise, so that we can build a bridge – mainly through music – with which to present the Gospel. Now Pat is looking at the inculturation possibilities in the liturgy through music.

This is where my thoughts diverge from his. Pentecost didn't take place within the liturgy, it took place out in the streets, in the marketplace. I think we do the liturgy a disservice if we try to make it into a vehicle for evangelisation. Firstly, the liturgy only makes sense once a person has been evangelised and awakened by the Holy Spirit. Secondly, for the early church an invitation to the liturgy was the last thing you did with a newcomer, and not the first thing. Even today when I read modern stories of conversion the majority of people darken the doors of a church as one of the last steps on their journey home to Catholic faith.

Therefore we need intermediate steps between the secular world and the liturgy. In such intermediate steps lay preaching, testimonies and contemporary music that engages the culture of the groups you desire to evangelise find their natural home.

It is worth trusting the wisdom of Mother Church on this one, when she insists that ordained ministers preach during the liturgy. They have been anointed and set apart for this purpose and have a minimum of 7 years of study behind them. While it is true that many of them don't have an obvious gift of preaching, we have to allow God to be God, knowing that a homily that does not engage you and me at all might contain the very words that someone else needs to hear. Instead of the satisfaction of complaining, our energies are much better directed to praying that our priests do receive the charismatic gift of preaching and praying that they preach according to the mind and heart of Jesus, in full harmony with the teachings of His Church and to the maximum spiritual benefit of those that will be present when they preach.

I've got no troubles with lay preachers if they exercise their ministry before or after the liturgy, but not during it.

My definition of culture is different too. Again we do a disservice if we only think about culture in terms of liturgical elements, eg architecture, music (eg African drums), decorative motifs on vestments and liturgical vessels, artwork (eg Our Lady of China).

For me culture is expressed primarily in public, private and family devotional practices. That's the fiestas, the processions, pilgrimages, special food for feast days, grace before meals, traditions passed down in families and nations, preferred spiritualities of prayer (people from exuberant cultures will prefer loud praise and dance, people from reserved cultures will prefer reflective silence and Eucharistic adoration) etc.

A cultural group votes with their feet about what is important to them. In Australia we seem to like setting off fireworks at major celebrations, gathering friends and family around a barbecue, Anzac Day touches us deeply, we like singing Christmas carols in big groups, and 'don't interrupt me if the footy, tennis or cricket is on'. These are the areas where creativity and Holy Spirit inspired ingenuity can take something naturally wholesome and elevate it to something supernaturally good.

On the very vexed subject of liturgical music, here's my two cents worth. While hip contemporary music for all songs at all Masses might seem like the answer, it isn't. Let me count the ways. Firstly if your average congregation is aged 70+, you are going to alienate them. Secondly, from my studies of conversion stories it is experiences of the historicity of the Church that make a difference. Thirdly, when people decide to come home to the Church (eg cradle Catholics returning after an absence), a familiar song really helps. Be a wise musical scribe and bring out from the liturgical music storehouse music that is both old and new. We need to sing new songs to the Lord, no question about that, but we need a mix; hymns that have stood the test of centuries of time, hymns that have stood the test of decades of time, hymns that have become favourites during the past decade and the new stuff. In other words we need to show our Catholicity (universality) in our musical selections and not narrow it down to one genre and era. The new is good, and the old is good; use both.

I was so hoping to read about fresh new ideas for spreading the good news of Jesus. That's what I was hungering for. So I'll contribute my own weird and wacky idea instead. Many Australians love going to live sporting events. There's plenty of God-loving-Catholics who rush home after Mass to watch the footy on TV. So if you have a youth group, a Cursillo group, a covenant community group etc, that has lots of sports loving members, consider this:

Make a group booking at a sporting event. Get yourselves matching T-shirts to wear (a slogan like 'Ask me about Jesus' on them or similar would be good). Sit together. Be clued up before you go as to how to act if unusual things transpire. For example, if a fight starts on the field, you all drop to your knees and pray for peace and reconciliation; if a player gets injured, you drop to your knees and collectively pray for the injured player, his/her family and the medical people assisting them; if the crowd starts boo-ing, you sit silently and pray for conversion of hearts; as you go from your seat to the toilets, to purchase merchandise or food and drink, silently beg God's blessing on every person on your path there and back, and if someone stops you and asks you the reason for the hope that you have (1 Peter 3:15), give it to them.

One thing Pat Keady does well is underline how all renewal has to start with us, with us taking God more seriously than we have ever taken Him before. Surrendering to His will; seeking the grace and power of the Holy Spirit; spending quality time in prayer and listening to Him; spending quality time reading from the Bible and studying His ways; making daily Mass and regular recourse to the sacrament of Penance a priority.

Another thing Pat Keady does well is talk about the difficulties faced by anyone who wants to try something new to further the kingdom of God. None of us like change, none of us are real keen on being challenged, so there's both this natural battle and the supernatural battle to contend with. Kick-back comes with the territory. This is true, but some kick-back is natural/supernatural resistance and some kick-back is 'hey, you are truly going the wrong way', and you need to pray for the wisdom and humility to know the difference.

He also speaks well about the times when everything just flows and the times when it is a test of grit and endurance through manifold difficulties. Lots of people in ministry need to hear his encouragement to keep on going.

In conclusion, yes it is a worthwhile book to read, however I personally would only invite someone to read it after first sharing the concerns I have about that 10% of content with them.
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