Tips for a Better ‘Now’

Being ‘present’ is quite a challenge for our distracted generation. For example, our focus can become easily drawn away from surrounding contexts to the digital world in the palm of our hands. Of course, much of our daily lives is helpfully managed on our phones, but life’s intrusions can often rob us of many important ‘now’ moments, sometimes simply because we prefer, or feel constrained by, alternative ones. What can we do to become better at seizing the present so as to optimise our future?

Four Causes of COVID Anxiety and How to Combat them

The impact of a world-record 247-day COVID lockdown in Melbourne has clearly been unsettling and disconcerting, no matter how resilient any of us might be. People’s levels of anxiety are, however, a matter of degree. Contributing factors can include external stressors, health concerns, financial instability, relationship problems, and more. Identifying and remedying even the more controllable factors, though, is still not easy. What are some tell-tale signs that all is not well internally and what can we do about the anxieties we might not even realise we are experiencing?

Vaccination passports: a ticket to freedom?

As the COVID lockdown continues in Melbourne, an understandable level of anxiety appears to have been rising. People without work for weeks or months on end, and businesses under threat, are just some of the many effects of the protracted measures testing everyone’s patience. So, what are we to make of vaccine passports as the possible ticket to the desperately-sought return to relative freedom, and something of the life we once knew?

Tools for Greater Resilience

A famous song, ‘Tubthumping,’ written about resilience, was used several years ago to promote the Melbourne Storm rugby team. Do its words, “I get knocked down but I get up again,” depict your own capacity to rebound during successive COVID lockdowns? We may well ask what the alternative is, anyway, as we power on unflappably, working from home (yet again). But in our reflective and self-aware moments, we do well to recalibrate our capacity to endure beyond the limits of tolerance we might think we have already reached.

When Corporate Thinking Fails the Church – Part 3

In concluding this series on the governance and some of its key structural problems in churches, it should be recognised that it is not always possible to adopt the ideal arrangement. Some people function as elders despite not being especially gifted for the size and scope of the role required. Similarly, boards might include certain people out of necessity, simply because a role has to be performed. The need for volunteerism (often from a small starting pool) means people serve for a time to facilitate a function. Some churches just prefer alternative approaches to those that others advocate and what actually works sometimes does so because it is adapted to the unique blend of people available and involved. Often, though, churches don’t question their existing structures and inherit avoidable problems.

When Corporate Thinking Fails the Church – Part 2

The important ‘culture’ and ‘compliance’ work of church boards can sometimes be fulfilled overzealously. This can result in some church boards trending toward control rather than facilitation, often stifling the person most experienced, gifted and called to lead. This is why a third key element of the work of church boards, ‘championing,’ is needed. It ensures support, prayer, honour, and the resourcing of leadership is prioritised. While any system is only as good as its people, it is these particular people who often unintentionally make one or more of the ten governance mistakes that typically hinder church growth.

When Corporate Thinking Fails the Church – Part 1

Boards serve an important governance role, usually well defined in corporations, but less so in churches, where it is often confused with eldership. Regulatory requirements need to ensure that the activities of a church are safely and legally governed, but many board members also function as senior leaders in churches. Some boards therefore tend to adopt a leadership or management role which can create tension while also distracting from the task of governance.

Building Hope in Lockdown 4.0

With an extended lockdown comes a sapping of momentum that can easily discourage us. Leaders are constantly seeking to build hope and therefore to cast a compelling vision for the future. When it feels that such hope is under threat our need for focus becomes even more important. The Biblical book of Lamentations offers some timeless wisdom that is very relevant to understanding the space in which we find ourselves.

God is Still Good for You

Last week’s Australian newspaper included a timely and welcome article on the relevance of the Bible in shaping western civilisation. Most pre-Easter media references to Christianity are typically laden with cynicism and reinterpretation. Drawing from his recent book, “God is Good for You,” Greg Sheridan showed that the writing of the New Testament actually did much to advance the cause of women in a patriarchal society. This became just one of the many virtues of a faith that, though imperfectly modelled by all too many, is still as relevant as ever.

Three Reasons Why I Became a Christian

I became a Christian at the age of sixteen despite growing up in a traditional church. The difference was in encountering God beyond – not even within – all the rituals. It wasn’t about induction into a community of belonging or acceptance of a particular religious tradition. It also wasn’t about running from the real world or finding identity as a cultural contrarian or wowser. Far from relinquishing reason, too, the journey to finding faith involved three steps of inquiry that changed my life and could perhaps change yours.