Yeah – it was tricky – I was trying to illustrate contemporary examples of differences between Christians whilst at the same time attempting to show they are not exactly the same.

So – the Jew Gentile differences around food were matters of gospel freedom. You could eat as much pork as you like with no fear of it ever being close to sin. By contrast, alcohol is not bad (indeed it is considered God’s gift in the Scriptures), but drunkenness is bad. So wisdom would dictate thinking through how to stay well clear of that.

For some Christians, they decide to never drink, for others they might choose to set themselves a limit. They are both trying to avoid an agreed danger – over indulging– but drawing different boundaries. The boundaries are protective – they are not God given. Some Christians will take a more conservative line (ie. a barrier further from the ‘cliff edge’), others will take a more libertine approach (ie. a barrier quite close to the ‘cliff edge’).

The difference should be clear.  Both are issues of freedom.  The Christian is free to both drink alcohol and eat pork.  Yet –  clean / unclean foods are not conservative / libertine distinction. With Jesus – you cannot sin by eating unclean food (insert caveat here from Romans 14 about concern for your brother / sisters conscience; perhaps also overeating / greed!). The food itself does not contaminate you (compare Jesus’ words in Mark 7).

So there are similarities and differences with are situation that are important to understand. In both situations Paul would probably encourage you to make up your mind and then stay relatively silent on your decision. But for different reasons – in Romans 14 – because you are waiting for your Christian brother to catch up on your understanding. With alcohol issues today – it is because you are making personal decisions about what is helpful for you and others around you – there is no absolute rule the Scripture gives.

As an illustration of how that works out…when working with halls students in Australia they had an annual pub crawl in the Orientation week. As a Christian worker in the hall I wanted to get to know the students, but was frustrated by a ‘drinking culture’ the hall created. In the end I went to some pubs along the way – but made sure I was seen to be only drinking orange juice. That was part of concern for students who may never touch alcohol – to be considerate of them. Later on in our home we may have offered wine during a meal if we thought a person would have no concerns in this area – and to perhaps quietly model a different usage of alcohol.

On your question – “How should we respond on issues we are weak on?”

In Romans 14 terms – you won’t know that you are weak. The weaker brothers ironically would have thought of themselves as morally superior and the others as pretty dodgy. That’s the trick – it’s an issue of mature understanding – and hence the need to educate the conscience. Partly that will be carefully listening to your brothers and sisters when they attempt to explain how they read the Scriptures – to hear their rationale for their behaviour, rather than imposing your own framework on them. That underlines the value of consistent teaching of the Scriptures to a church – to gradually but intentionally work through the Scriptures. That is something that will grow the unity of a group.

That’s different to the drinker / non drinker of alcohol…that’s not a weak / strong issue (unless they believe the Bible bans all alcohol) – it’s a question of wisdom.

(‘Wiki’ says: A bratwurst is a sausage usually composed of veal, pork or beef. The name is German, derived from Old High German brätwurst, from brät-, which is finely chopped meat and -wurst, or sausage.)

How would you like a little taste of German culture? Join us for a social night full of festive folk dancing and hilarity! If game, come dressed in German attire! Not only will it be bucket-loads of fun, it will also be a fantastic opportunity to meet new people.

It’s less than a week away, so start inviting your friends, flatmates and family to come with you! Everyone is most welcome – the more, the merrier!

7.30pm Saturday 22nd May
66 Ilam Rd (Ilam School Hall, same location as Campus Church)

Campus Church is eager to pray as a group on a regular basis, as a whole church. At present, that means once a term. Please take this opportunity to join with us to pray for the year ahead. This is a particularly crucial time as we look forward to the arrival of many new students.

Dinner will be provided and we will pray for an hour together – finished by 6:30pm.
RSVP would be GREATLY appreciated, so that we can make sure you’re all feed!

Please bring $5 to cover dinner.

Sunday 14th February, 5pm

We’re spending four weeks thinking about our prayer life as a church.

We thought working our way through the Lord’s Prayer would be a good base to work from.  We’re probably more familiar with the term – ‘The Lord’s Prayer’, but perhaps a better title would be ‘The Child’s Prayer’.  It’s from the Lord, but FOR children. It is the prayer that Jesus invites us to pray because we have the unique position as adopted children of God – brothers and sisters of Jesus.

Jesus invites us I think to consider how prayer to a caring heavenly Father will be different to the prayers of the religious showman and the religious pagans.

The showman loves to be seen as both prayerful and theologically profound.  He prays in order to be seen.  Jesus says they have been rewarded – by the applause of the crowd.  They have their reward – and nothing more.

The pagans of Jesus’ day thought that their gods heard them because of techniques and repetition.  Jesus contrasts that with the God of the Bible, who both knows all and is a Father who cares for His children.  He does not have to be spurred into action on their behalf.  Rather, he longs for them to come and lay their needs before Him.

So prayer in Jesus’ terms is neither a duty nor a show.  It is a privilege to be enjoyed.  So let’s spend four weeks reflecting on how we can individually and corporately delight in God in prayer.  If you missed the first talk, you might like to download it here.

In Christ,

Nick

The E100 Bible Reading Challenge comes from a partnership between Bible Society New Zealand, Scripture Union and Wycliffe Bible Translators. It’s a great tool to help churches get Kiwi Christians back into reading their Bibles.

Check out their brand new video!

More details here

Just looking through the photos from the Saturday Stroll, looks like it was amazing!

Nathan Rich says:

“The Saturday stroll was another great outing! After a bleak start with clouds rolling in, the sun broke through and left some people feeling a wee bit too warm. The walk itself wasn’t very strenuous, only taking about one hour each way.  At the gun emplacement we stopped to take a look around and have lunch. There were many dark and scary-looking tunnels to explore and with Matt Price leading the charge, a brave few went creeping through the unknown! Soon afterwards the NZ army turned up looking ready for any sign of invasion! As it happened they were just doing a little exploring of their own, and with a sweet smile from Rachel Reed, they decided to unlock the top secret parts of the battlement so that we could look around. The top secret parts included a trip into the room the furthest underground which was used as the main ammunition chamber and supposedly wouldn’t collapse or blow up even if the ground above was fired upon by the enemy! After a scrumptious shared lunch spent basking in the sun we slowly meandered back to the real world….”

Here’s a selection of photos, more can be found on Facebook

What a great example of how to talk to friends..

The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.

 …….

This Monk had first gone wrong when it was simply given too much to believe in one day. It was, by mistake, cross-connected to a video recorder that was watching eleven TV channels simultaneously, and this caused it to blow a bank of illogic circuits. The video recorder only had to watch them, of course. It didn’t have to believe them as well. This is why instruction manuals are so important.

So after a hectic week of believing that war was peace, that good was bad, that the moon was made of blue cheese, and that God needed a lot of money sent to a certain box number, the Monk started to believe that thirty-five percent of all tables were hermaphrodites, and then broke down. The man from the Monk shop said that it needed a whole new motherboard, but then pointed out that the new improved Monk Plus models were twice as powerful, had an entirely new multi-tasking Negative Capability feature that allowed them to hold up to sixteen entirely different and contradictory ideas in memory simultaneously without generating any irritating system errors, were twice as fast and at least three times as glib, and you could have a whole new one for less than the cost of replacing the motherboard of the old model.

Only eleven days before our first ever church camp.  We’re excited to be joined by Bryson Smith from Dubbo who wrote the book ‘Faith’ – published last year by Matthias Media.  It’s a topic we’re keen to explore together given the huge misunderstandings on the whole question of what it means to trust Jesus as a Christian.

It’s also our desire for the weekend to be a great opportunity for building relationships with incoming students and existing members of Campus Church.  What a great way to start the year.

You can register online through the church website.

Here’s a conference I wish we could send some people to..shame it’s in Sydney.

I’m encouraged to see Christians committed to working at creative communication.  Of all the groups in our context clamoring for attention, Christians have something to say.  You might be forgiven for missing that judging from the effort and resources we put into the communication process.

They’ve also got a blog on the conference.  There’s some interesting thoughts on Obama’s campaign as an example of clear and persuasive communication.  Be worth reflecting on.