After so long ...

I cannot believe how long it has been since I have made actual time to sit down and write something here. It escapes me why I am doing it now - with three assignments due this week, but that could possibly be the art of procrastination (or my break) working.
I have just come back from attending an initiative of the Queensland Synod called "Stretching Faith" which was a gathering of young adults with the aim of reflecting theologically on issues of the church and life. We had 3 very good speakers and I will take a short time describing what each spoke about.
Alistair Macrae spoke about bible reading and study and how to get the most out of it. He shared 3 Questions people should apply when reading the bible:

1. What us the behind of the text? [What has come before this]
2. What is the within of the text? [what is it saying]
   
3. What is the infront of in the text? [what is the dimension/wisdom/connection of the texts context and ours?]

When studying the bible the word conversation is critical. Group bible studies are more effective than one on one or individual study. A good method of using this conversational method, is by using a bible study that Al nicknamed the "swedish" method. This method is to go through a text (in our case, the feeding of the 5000) and mark the text (silently at first) as so:

• ! against parts in the text you said 'yes' to or agree with
• ? again parts you question, or made you think
• X again parts you didn't like or said 'no' to

In small groups we used the "swedish" method and discuss the feeding of the 5000, with placing particular emphasis on the ? parts of the text. After we shared with the wider group, we split into small groups again and did a comparison exercise with the beatitudes by comparing them with what today's culture values compared to whatis valued in the beatitudes. For example: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" could become "Blessed are the strong in wealth" or "Blessed are those who don't complain".

Ben Myers presented us with a multimedia talk on the theme Monstrous Grace in Popular Culture. We looked at a piece of fiction (Flannery O'Connor), two pieces of music (Tom Waits), and a film (Magnolia). Each piece of Pop Culture presented us with a different image of grace. Grace was not this pretty thing willingly given to everyone in happy streams of rainbows. The grace of God was shown as this liberating and freeing forced compared to what each piece of work presented us. In Flannery O'Connor's "Revelation", the main character (who is a pious and church going woman) has a revelation in a doctors office and all the people in life she despises ("white trash" and "niggers") are entering heaven before her and taking up seats of honour. In the Tom Waits songs we are presented with quite grotesque images of life - but that is how life really is. In one song, Down there By the Train, it speaks of how God's love and grace is available to everyone (including some of the worst criminals in history). In Magnolia, a quote by Jill Stauffer brilliantly sums it up - "To get the point of Magnolia is to admit that freedom is not our highest value".
Freedom is to be bound to one thing - that is the right thing.
Grace means neither that human beings can or should do something, nor that they can or should do nothing. Grace means that God does something ~ Karl Barth (Epistle to the Romans)

Michelle Cook led us through the basis of union. We looked at what we thing of when we hear the word 'church' and what we think a church is and what the purpose of church is. We looked at the Basis of Union para. 3-4 and did the same "swedish" method with it. The conversation that followed was vigorating - especially to see that the basis of union speaks of the whole church ... not just the Uniting Church in itself.
The BoU offers us a critique of how we interact as church .... that our faith journey is not an individualistic one but a communal journey together in the world.