2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal

Read this article recently. Made me think. Check it out.
2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal

Yes, it is a catchy headline and it is not what Kurzweil said. However lets consider a few facts.

On its best day computer technology can only process data incredibly fast. It can't think about the data. It can't take into account life variables such as morality, laws, feelings etc. It can process information at high speed but in the end all it has is highly processed information.

Despite such fanciful movies views of the present (Enemy of the State), the near future (Eagle Eye) and the not to distant future (Terminator movies) computers can only do what they are programmed to do. Sounds boring and you won't see a movie about it.

Oh they can really mess you up. Remember the old adage, "To err is human but to really screw things up takes a computer".

I love science fiction but really get ticked off when people fail to see the difference with science fact.

Documents Please

We live in a highly identified age. Do you remember the movie, Catch Me If You Can, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks? It was so easy for Leonardo to fake being someone else. Today it's different. You need ID cards, drivers license, tax file number, social security number.  Numbers and photos, passwords etc. No more acid washing cheques or wearing a pilot's uniform to change your identity.

Yet, after thinking about it for a while, I am convinced that we have got to get a grip on who we really are. In amongst all the energy and confusion of life, who am I? When you step back and ask that question that answer doesn't seem quite so black and white as getting out your driver's license.

[Warning Mode] This is not about religion. It is about who you are in this expanding universe and who you are in this mass humanity that you were born into. [Exit Warning Mode]

I am my father's son. No way to get into this world without him. Logon on to ancestry.com and check out my family history and I can find out who I am as far as my physical family is concerned. That's the easy part. I have a passport that informs me (and those nosey custom's officials) about my country of origin. That reminds me. Must apply for a British passport.

But I am more than a Little and an Australian. I am a child of this universe. But does that say anything about who I am? It all depends on whether this universe was created by someone or came about by random non-personal forces. Why?

It's like whether you are progeny of a mother and father or by genetic splicing. (It's not the same, just like it.) Who I am is totally different if I see myself as Denis' son or as a laboratory process. It changes who I am and how I look at myself.

The two choices I can see (there may be more but I have yet to recognize them) is that I am either a child of a creative active of a being who is of a higher order than me (call it God) or of creative coincidence of the elemental forces (call it whatever you want, it's not talking to you).

I am either a child of God or a chemical process. Which one I believe will change who I think I am. Which one is real determines my true identity.

[Argument Mode] How can non-personal give rise to personal? How can non-conscious "create" conscious? How can non-living give life to the living? How can non-loving (or any relational dynamic) give birth to the loving? How can non-George create George[Exit Argument Mode]

I am either a child of God or a child of the elements.

Who are you?  More on this in later blogs.

Stepping Back & Getting Perspective

Life can really squeeze the life out of you. Busy, busy ... tired ... concerns ... money ... people ... work ... etc. etc. etc.

Let me speak in cliches for a moment. At the end of the day it seems like I am spinning my wheels. [Exit cliche mode]

I am in the middle of holidays with Julie and now with some of my family (Ben, Carly and Benji) and the last week has afforded me the opportunity to step back from all my responsibilities, think about nothing if I want, and just hang. In the context of such disconnectedness I have been able to gain a little perspective on all those things that press in on me.

A very perceptive man once said that there is nothing new under the sun. My worries, concerns and fears are no different to millions of others. Didn't seem like it until I stepped back and suddenly was able to see things with a little more clarity and perspective.

Life is really not about how much comfort or money you have or how much you can control. It's about how you see all those things in your life. And perspective really helps your sight. What's the most important thing about driving at 100 km/hour? Engine size. No. Aerodynamics? Airbags? Tyre pressure? None of these. Most important is your sight. [Exit Yoda mode]

Think I will step back a little more and see what I can see.

Bottom line. Holidays are fun but they are so much more. See you in a week.

The Ointment

When I was a young boy (back when the crust of the earth was cooling :) ), I would often get a rash on my arms. My mother would take me to the doctor and he would prescribe a tube of white goo to rub on the rash to make it better. I was looking at the tube one day (didn't have anything better to do) and I noticed that it was rather imaginatively called "The Ointment". It may as well have been call "the white goo". But I digress.

I believed the ointment worked. It always worked. However it wasn't of any value until I applied it to my skin. The word of God is like that. You can believe in it, cherish it, recommend it but it doesn't do any good until it is applied to your soul. Application is what the point of the Bible is.

Reading it and studying it are an important part of the process God has planned but they are bordering on useless if the word is not applied to your heart. James 1:22 puts it this way. “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” 


By all means, search and find the meaning of the text. Certainly teach it and proclaim it. But don't nullify all that good work by not applying it to your life and teaching the application.

Some of us love words a little too much. We enjoy the academic experience of Bible Study a little too much.

We need to ask the question when listening to God's word, "What does God want me to do?". And then go out and do it.

Applying the ointment. What a concept?

Institutional Christians

After talking with many Christians lately I have been impressed with the huge gulf there is between having an institutional connection to God and a relational one.

An institutional one is one where we see our relationship with God being through the group that we are in. We think, “I am in the church, therefore I am connected to God”. We see all our relationships with people in the church as “group” relationships and many times that means that they are not that personal. Other Christians soon become just the “people I see at church”. It doesn’t have to be this way but I am seeing it far too much in the wide range of churches I am moving amongst at the moment.

This is not the complaint of one who is looking for the perfect church. That animal doesn’t exist. Didn’t exist in the first century. It is futile to look for it in the 21^st century.

No, what I am talking about here is a paradigm shift in the way we look at God and other Christians.

God has planned for his church to be a people, not an institution. “As he says in Hosea: “I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people; and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,” and, “It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God’.”” Romans 9:25, 26. Christians are an organic body not an organization (1 Corinthians 12:13,14). We are a family not “co-habiters”. Our connection is not that we end up in the same place each week, it is the one who draws us to that place.

We are brothers and sisters, a people who belong to our Father, God. “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” 1 Peter 2:9, 10.  We are all sinners who have received mercy.

Warning Signs you are an “Institutional Christian”

• You really don’t want to hang around with Christians except at church for a brief period on Sunday.
• You only get concerned about others at church when they are not “at church”.
• Your social connection with other Christians is minimal and mostly formal.
• When Christians get in trouble, you run away from them.
• You hit the carpark 1.5 seconds after the final prayer at church. Sometimes even after the communion.
• You never hang around for lunch with the church.
• You would rather have hernia surgery than volunteer to help out with anything to do with church.
• You haven’t invited anyone to a Christian gathering of any sort in years.

Is this you? I see myself in this list and I am an evangelist. I should know better, but I fall into bad habits. What about you? Be honest. This is important. Is "this" what Jesus is about? Enter the conversation. There is life in the church.

Next blog: How to get out of the institutional Christian trap. 

Who Is Left?

Think of all the people who have been in your life?

Who has hung in there with you for the long haul?

Some are with you when "things" are going well but fade when "things" turn bad.
Some are close when you live close but they disappear when you move away.
Some are your friend while it is useful for them but the friendship fades as they don't need you much any more.

After all the "fade outs", and moves who is left by your side? These are special people. They are truly friends. They choose to be with you (even if it is only Facebook from the other side of the world) despite your failures, mistakes and even successes. The wise one puts it this way. “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” Proverbs 17:17.

I find ministry in the church is also a good place to ask this question. Who is left?

Some shine brightly for a little time. They are the focus of excitement but just a few years later they are gone. There are the really clever ones who make a lot of sense with their strategy for change but after a while they are gone. If you have been around in churches for a few years you know what I am talking about.

Who is left? Who has given up or found it more convenient to (or even called to) move on. People may be gone for perfectly godly reasons. I am not questioning their motivations. I just have found it so sobering and encouraging to focus on the ones who stay for whole game and don't leave at half time.

Thank God for the ones who hang in there. They are here for you and your church. They may have been around so long that they blend into the background but don't let them. Praise them. Seek them. Allow God to use them. God has put them in your life for a reason. Love them. Above all, love them.

Reminds me of Paul's comment about Timothy, his long time partner in ministry. “I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you. I have no-one else like him, who takes a genuine interest in your welfare. For everyone looks out for his own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know that Timothy has proved himself, because as a son with his father he has served with me in the work of the gospel.”Philippians 2:19-22.

Reach out the ones who are left with you.

Reflections on a Weekend

Recently I participated in the Australia Christian Convention hosted by WestChurch in Sydney and it included believers from all over the Restoration Movement but mainly the Acapella Churches of Christ, Independent Christian Churches and Former International Churches of Christ.

What hit me the most was not our differences but the immensity of the similarities of our journeys. Certainly our journeys had been different but here we were standing up for the gospel of Jesus and striving to learn how better to proclaim that gospel. There were representatives from 7 church plantings currently active in the South Pacific. All quite unique in their approaches and contexts but all united in their love for Jesus and their love for people and their unswerving commitment to the truth that only Jesus provides the complete solution to the paradox of live in the 21st century. I love these brothers and sisters.

Another thing that hit me is a little bit harder to express. I know this can sound a little judgmental, so please, while reading these words, give me the benefit of the doubt. I have been working in church context for 32 years and I have noticed that there are two sorts of approaches to the work of the kingdom. There are those who seem to endlessly talk about our mission. And then there are those who not only talk about it, but actually get out there and get busy doing something about it. A lot of them fall flat on their faces but they do so while putting their lives where their mouths are. The brothers and sisters that characterized this weekend were doers. They have left family, financial security and lucrative secular careers to do what Jesus has called them to do and my admiration for them is unbounded.

I was touched deeply to an old Dire Straits song and I think it applies here.

"Through these fields of destruction
Baptisms of fire
I've witnessed all your suffering
As the battles raged higher
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms"


Ahh. Brothers in arms. Our brotherhood is not just built on the God who died for us but in our dedication to the mission he gave us from the foot of the cross. I so glad I have brothers in arms. They lift me up. They keep me humble. They inspire me. They stand up for me. Thank God that He gave us brothers in arms. 


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