PROPHETIC WORDS

SHIFTS HAPPEN: BEYOND THE GROWING PAINS

by Keith Newman

August 2021

Lyn Packer here – The following article by Keith Newman was not written as a specific prophetic word, but rather as an article designed to make us think and question and enquire of the Lord. However, as I read it I heard in it the voice of the Lord speaking clearly through it to the church of New Zealand and that’s why it’s being posted here today.

Not all prophetic words start with “Thus sayeth the Lord” and many prophetic voices are found in ordinary occupations outside of recognised church ministry. This article lines up with many of the prophetic words on this site calling the church of New Zealand to assess where it’s at, to move past the effects of colonisation, and to emerge with its own indigenous expression.

In this article I hear clearly the Lord calling the church in New Zealand to fulfil its calling to be a light that shines from the ends of the earth, a people who bring reconciliation between races, and model the scriptural exhortation found in Gal 3:28 that “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Shifts Happen

We are urged to discern the times. We read the skies that tell us about weather patterns and check the forecast to plan ahead, but how well do we known the signs of the times?

The combination of rapid technological and scientific advancement, climate change, political and social disruption, and the modern day global Covid plague, are in the process of changing the world in ways we cannot possibly know.

In this chaotic mix of uncertainty everything is shifting and moving so rapidly that I often get the sense that it will take historians, sociologists and possibly theologians of the future to unpack the significance of what we’re now in the middle of.

Maybe what we’re sensing in this time of massive change is what my mother used to describe in my youthful days as ‘growing pains’. All this stretching and challenging could be our own opportunity to transition, to shift and shine in a new place of maturity.

Often when things appear to be falling apart there’s a space for rethinking and framing so that in the recovery we are renewed. As they say, “The darkest hour is just before the dawn.”

In some ways we might be experiencing a kind of death, maybe the end of an age bought about by the failure of so many of our systems to cope.

The massive pressures of market driven economics have resulted in many people profiting, but also accelerated inequalities for those who are disadvantaged by the competitive environment where prices keep rising and the winners are under no compulsion to share their gains.

Even traditional forms of western Christianity have often failed to provide adequate answers about meaning and purpose, or practically express the nature of this divine love we hear so much about.

Maybe change is painful because we’ve taken so much for granted and it’s uncomfortable, even humbling, to have to admit we are stuck. Letting old things go to create space for the new is not easy.

Cleaning out the garage

Maybe we cling to experiences or things because that’s what we’ve always done and we don’t quite realise yet they’ve passed their use by date. Doing the same stuff over and over (verse, chorus, verse, chorus repeat...repeat), because that’s what the book says, or that’s how we do it in our club, is not going to cut it anymore.

The idea was put forward around the 500th anniversary of Luther’s Protestant ‘Reformation’, where he challenged the controlling and unbiblical ways of the corrupt church which aligned too closely with politics, power and punishment, that we needed a new reformation.

I like the way that was proposed in the foreword to Phyllis Tickle’s The Great Emergence, that the church was overdue for a giant garage sale. In my mind I envisaged a cleaning out of the attic for old books, theories, theological ideas, structures and systems that had become stale.

Rethinking the Commission

To safely navigate transitions away from the old and irrelevant to the new and invigorating, to break the ties that bind, requires an open heart and mind. Holding rigidly to old systems and theological ideas, silo thinking, and defensiveness will not serve us well in this seismic shift.

Some cannot, and will not, change; that’s the way of history, that’s the real ‘left behind’. So, what needs to be let go of? What do we need to repent of and ask forgiveness for?

What is the business Jesus sent His disciples to engage in? Or has man’s business taken over and systematised, franchised, sanitised, and structured His message, housing it in expensive buildings with rote formulas so that it is longer salt and light in an increasingly needy world?

Have we been asking the right questions? How can we best serve our community? How can we be in touch with the needs of the least, the last, the lost and the lonely?

How connected are we with Aotearoa’s indigenous communities and marae? Did we listen to their cries of land loss and protests against assimilation, or did we just hope they’d give up their old ways and become more Europeanised members of our tithing congregations?

Did we stand up for injustice, did we even know the early missionary and colonising history of Aotearoa-New Zealand, or did we chant the ‘get over it’ mantra alongside our happy clappy ditties on Sunday mornings?

Is the church on the bi-cultural journey or is it having a visiting speaker update us annually so we can tick that box and carry on as normal?

There’s work to do. Forced back into our homes and private offices during a second round of Covid should force us to rethink what things could, or should, look like post Covid version 2.

Are Zoom meetings or TV or streaming church going to get us there? How do we build meaningful communities? How do we serve, or put our weight and resources behind, those who are working among the most needy?

Some of us feel incensed that Maori have come up with a future-looking vision document called He Puapua, that looks ahead a decade or so.  They call it separatist, but it attempts to address what successive governments have failed to do, to more adequately meet the welfare, health, justice, and other needs of Maori and pay practical attention to generational injustices.

Vision for future church

So what would a similar looking vision document look like for the church?

The challenge is that changing the culture of mainstream churches, or even denominations, would be like shifting seats or carriages on a train that already has scheduled stops, timetables and a destination.

Perhaps this mini revolution ought to happen ‘alongside’, independently but supported by, willing churches and para-church organisations who could share their resources, ensuring fresh ideas and ways of doing things get the air needed to not only survive, but thrive?

What would a Spirit-led Aotearoa focussed Bible and Treaty of Waitangi vision statement look like? It can’t be simply another report that gets filed away because the boxes were ticked.

Perhaps it’s a collaborative template of ideas, opportunities, resources, connections and approaches that could be implemented by groups within each church that decided to pick it up?

Maybe some mainstream churches who can’t fill their buildings should offer them up to ‘Alongsider’ groups (thanks Mick Duncan for the term) and provide resources and funding to explore and experiment with more intimate, creative, interactive and embracing ways of being, and doing, church?

I know, it’s been done before, but either through lack of resources or takeover by church leaders who didn’t listen or understand, the best ideas were often crushed, and the most creative people either conformed or walked away.

There are thousands who have been through this who have since found the fringes away from the Sunday routine is a much safer place to be.

Having the right leaders with the right support and resources, and a willingness to partner with and listen more deeply to Maori as full partners in the Body of Christ, might well be the key.

Perhaps we need to come up with our own He Puapua, the space between the waves, to set a new and more holistic tone for faith development, partnership, participation and protection.

A wananga of leaders could scope out more marae-style, open ways of ‘fellowshipping’, learning, communicating, connecting and collaborating with eager participants who model it and share it for others to learn from and add to?

The idea that all things work together for good is a powerful biblical meme. The qualifier is “for those who love God and are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). It can be misused as a catchall encouragement when the guano is hitting the fan, or a statement of wider divine purpose being worked out in each circumstance, even in history – our history right now in virus time.

Perhaps we’re back in a time of renewed calling where we need to discern what things are working together, follow the signs, be part of the reset, and let the shift happen.

PRAYER POINTS

We are in a time of deep things being revealed, on an individual, church, and societal level. Pray that we will be open to hearing what we have not wanted to hear in the past. Pray that we will be open to facing our systemic woundedness and wrong mindsets in the church, that we will repent and seek healing. Pray into the need for us to look openly and honestly at the way we do things, to recognise where they have not worked, and to ask for the Lord's strategy as to how to serve people better. Also that we would humble ourselves and ask the Lord's forgiveness, and the forgiveness of those we have oppressed and hurt within the church.

BIO