what would Jesus play? [and other reflections on Arisefest 2010]

sometimes i like to picture Jesus in a modern day setting and wonder how His life and ministry would have looked if it was 2011 when God decided to come to earth in human form to settle the original score instead of 2000ish years ago

would He have watched movies or played computer games? Would He have had His own Facebook page or blog? Would Jesus own a cellphone (my thorts are He probably wouldn’t because He seemed to be quite an in-the-moment in-the-place kind of guy) or gone and watched five days of a cricket test (i suspect He might have done this, and used it as an opportunity to spend some time bonding with His little band of followers throwing out “The kingdom of God is like a slip cordon…” and other teachings)

we don’t really know and i imagine if we put even three people in a room and asked them a bunch of those type questions we would have a variety of strong but differing opinions on most of them

looking back over the last two days of Arisefest – the christian band festival i was privileged to be a small part of (as mc for the main stage) – i thort through that scenario again and came up with a few thorts on the matter

in the unlikelihood (i.m.o.) of Jesus being part of a rock/hardcore/hip-hop/indie etc band that played at the festival…

…He wouldn’t invite girls to throw themselves at the single band members and then take off his shirt and call on people in the crowd to do the same…

…He wouldn’t disrespect the festival organisers and the other bands in a tightly packed band schedule by ignoring signals from the side of the stage to end His band’s set so that the next band could go on, just because He wanted to stay on the stage…

…He definitely wouldn’t lead crowds in vociferous “Jesus is my King” chanting or intense praise and worship and then follow it by launching into “just one more song” when told to leave the stage because He was already a few minutes over…

…and i’m fairly certain He wouldn’t have one of his band members try and physically back the mc off the stage and then Himself physically push him away just for a last few minutes of crowd fervour as He played an extended instrumental ending to the “just one more” song He’d decided to do making Him now 15 minutes over His allotted time…

at the same time as some of this was going on, there were a couple of moments that really stood out for me, and reflecting back on them now, the ones that come to mind pretty much all involved bands that i am friends with some or all of the members of (that makes me happy) – moments like the Harbourlight guys playing their set with such a Jesus-focused passion that spilled over to the crowd, Rash from Versus the Wolf taking some precious minutes out of their playing time to address the crowd and share their hearts for doing what they do (which is glorifying God and reaching people with the hope that is in Jesus) and Tyron from Skylit City – the organiser of the festival – full on passionately singing their bands songs and later on leading the crowd in a time of rampant worship and then finishing their band set and leaving the stage ten minutes before their time had even run out (maybe something along the lines of “It’s all about You” honestly being lived out there)

what would Jesus do? We wear the bracelet, maybe we ask the question, but to be honest i’m not sure it’s hitting the heart of the matter because we can only guess and ponder and hypothesise and possibly argue about it… what might be a better, more accurate question is “What would Jesus have me do?” and it really was a festival for me of seeing some bands and people legitimately answering that question while others simply chased the applause of the crowds or got caught up in the experience of the moment…

to Be The Change (festival theme) you HAVE to start with being changed…

lausanne reflections: part united church

this week the third lausanne congress for world evangelication is happening in cape town – 4200 delegates from around the world representing church leaders, academics, theologians, marketplace people as well as men, women as well as old, young – convening for a week to discuss relevant issues facing the church – things like globalisation, pluralism, multi-faith society, relevance, integrity, response to poverty, trafficking etc etc – it is an incredible time and i am so super amped for the beautiful Val that she gets to be a part of it

in 2006 i was privileged to be a part of what was called the younger leaders gathering where 500 people from 150 churches met in malaysia for a similiar younger version of this congress – it was life-changing and i met some really amazing people who continue to be a part of my life – and this week i am involved in a global link which is a satellite conference dealing with a lot of stuff Lausanne is dealing with (watching a lot of same footage and hearing same talks and then engaging with the stuff) – last nite was the first session and went from super not amped (organisational issues in setting it up) to being completely amped (the group that arrived) and then encouraged/blown away/broken/challenged/shaken by the footage that we watched, in particular the history of the church (very very good and very very bad and a lot of persecution) from Jesus time to present day

the one phrase that came through about 6 to 8 times in that presentation was “people thort it was going to be the end of the world” (for example when the plague claimed about a third of Europe’s population or something) and as the voiceover guy said at the end – every generation thinks there’s is going to be the last, but one of them will be right

but the one message that came through again and again is that a divided church is a weak and foolish and irrelevant thing – the church is responsible for a lot of missingthepointness and violence and hypocracy and so on in terms of the past (well, not really, if you define church as God-following people cos it hasn’t been when people have been truly following God that that stuff has happened) but it has also been part of an incredible amount of good and positive and upliftment and life – when the church is a group of people who follow God and walk in the footsteps of Jesus while filled by His Spirit and living that out, then the church is a beautiful thing – that church is worth loudly proclaiming that i am a part of

if you are part of a local congregation and either you or one of your leaders ever makes any statement or claim about your specific church being the one true church or better than other churches or anything like that or speaks out against other churches then run, flee, head for the hills, leave that ‘church’ and seek out Jesus…

Cape Town 2010: The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization

16-25 October – Lausanne 2010 – for those of you who are not aware of it, next week there is going to be a very important Christian conference happening in Cape Town – 4000 Christian leaders from around the world are going to be meeting together to look at a variety of topics and come up with action plans to make a difference in the world – this is the third time Lausanne is happening (the first time actually being in Lausanne) – more more information you can check out the site at http://www.lausanne.org/cape-town-2010

However, for those people who are not able to make the actual conference (because you weren’t invited for example) there are sites around the world that are going to be dealing with the same information and meeting together and grappling with the issues and then feeding back to the main conference and so i encourage you to find out if there is one in your area and get involved – http://www.lausanne.org/cape-town-2010/globalink.html

I am helping organise one in Cape Town specifically for younger leaders (so on average 18 to 35 year olds working with children or youth or students and more) and if you know of someone (your youth/student leader for example) who you think should be there then tell them to get hold of me and i can pass on the information…

One thing that is open to all young people is a worship event next Thursday 21 October at 55 Kloof Street from 6 to 10 pm which i can highly recommend – we are going to hopefully have a number of the younger leader delegates from the conference coming to share some testimony as to what God is doing in various places around the world interspersed with worship – it is going to be a free event (with an offering to cover costs) but i highly recommend you cancelling cell or youth or whatever you may have going and join us for that as it is a once in a lifetime opportunity in terms of the Lausanne conference being on our doorstep and it would be a great thing to get even a glimpse of

So email me at brettfish@hotmail.com if you want to know more about either – some of the topics our global link will be looking at that week include: making the case for Christ in a pluralistic society, peace of Christ in a broken and divided world, wealth power and poverty, bearing witness to the love of Christ to people of other faiths, globalisation and discerning the will of Christ for modern day evangelisation… some very meaty topics so send your young leaders to be a part of it.

south africa, our country

Awesome SA is a site dedicated to the good news of what happens in South Africa that we seldom get to read about in the newspapers or watch in the news – they send out regular newsletters with testimonies of south africans living and loving large and helping make this nation the thing it truly can be – i encourage you to get connected

‘Awesome SA is about encouraging South Africans to positively influence the future.’

Find out more about us on http://www.awesomesa.co.za

in their latest newsletter they included a number of encouraging links and i just wanted to share two of them with you – an open letter of thankx so bafana bafana:

http://blogs.sport24.co.za/mspr1nt/an-open-letter-of-thanks-to-bafana

and this letter by Shari Cohen, an international development worker in the public sector who wrote this in the publication she writes for back home – i will include one paragraph to whet your appetite but go read the whole thing:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shari-cohen/south-africa-rolls-out-th_b_611802.html

“So, if South Africa accomplishes nothing more on the playing field, it will still have won as a host country. I am a cynic, no doubt about that. And yet I have to admit, I’m a little teary just writing this because I leave for home next weekend and I will be leaving a little piece of myself here in South Africa. I just hope I have learned enough to bring back a little piece of Ubuntu to my homeland, where perhaps with a little caring and a little water, it will take root as naturally as it does here, in the cradle of civilization. It’s funny, many people in America still ask me, “are the people in Africa very primitive?” Yes, I know, amazing someone could ask that but they do. And when they do, I usually explain that living in a mud hut does not make one primitive, however, allowing kids to sell drugs to other kids and engage in drive-by killings — isn’t that primitive behavior? I think it is. When I think of Ubuntu and my recent experiences here, I think America has much to learn from Africa in general, in terms of living as a larger village; and as human beings who are all interconnected with each other, each of us having an affect on our brothers and sisters.

As the 2010 Cup slogan goes, “Feel it. It is here.” Well, I have felt it, because I am here. Thank you South Africa, for giving me this unexpected gift. I am humbled.”

[and by one i clearly mean two]

cheating or luck

so the other knight i had a way too intense discussion with a friend of mine on whether things like the Henry hand ball goal, the Maradona ‘hand of God’ goal, nicking behind and not walking in cricket etc etc are cheating or just incidents of luck and it’s up to the ref to spot them and if not then ah well…

and then the England Germany game happened and apart from me backing Germany and predicting a 4-1 scoreline before the game happened (yes yes completely lucky guess but got Argentina 3-1 over Mexico as well – if only i could convert that talent to my F1 dream league…) there was that controversial blatant should-have-been-a-goal and what makes it worse (for me) is that the goalkeeper seems to have admitted that he knew it was a goal and that he deliberately tried – and succeeded – to fool the ref

http://g.sports.yahoo.com/soccer/world-cup/news/german-keeper-feels-he-fooled-the-referee–fbintl_ro-germankeepr062710.html

deliberately trying to fool the ref into missing what was a blatant goal – to me that’s cheating, no question. and yes i think this is a little different from some of the incidents mentioned above like the cricket one where i get that it goes either way and so you get a lot of bad calls so why not take a lucky one when it happens (but still think that someone who nicks and walks like Jonty or Gilchrist or Amla has bucketloads more character than someone who doesn’t) so the question is did he cheat (and why the heck would he admit to it after the game anyways?) or was it just a lucky incident down to his quick reflexes and does it matter either way?

i do think Germany played better soccer and deserved to win…

BUT if the goal had been allowed and the score had been 2-2 the momentum would have been with England and it could really have changed the game around completely and we will never know that ever and so can only surmise which is a good word. and surely as a player (actually i doubt this for a lot of them) you want to win the world cup (or any sporting event) knowing you were the better team, not cos the other team was full of injuries or because you got some lucky but incorrect calls…