Avatar Movie and its pantheistic push

Yesterday I had a chance to watch "Avatar" in 3D at the movies, the latest hollywood mega blockbuster which is starting to break box office records. It was an enjoyable movie and entertaining as you'd expected. Two nagging thoughts lingered in my mind after the movie though. You could see the post-modern influence - man with it's technological advances, fighting a primitive alien tribal group. It is the primitive tribal group which triumphs and portrayed as more noble. Secondly, the pantheism in the movie. The object of worship of the Navi (the alien tribal group) is a tree which has life giving properties. It reminds me of the movies by Japan's most well known and respected movie director, Miyazaki Hayao ("Spirited Away" and other animated movies) which has a similar pantheistic push.

It is sad to see people to reject the true creator of this universe to worship a tree.

"When people cease to believe in God, they don't believe in nothing; they believe in everything" G.K. Chesteron

Christmas 2009

Lisa's family Boxing Day

With my family Christmas Day

We weren't expecting to be in Sydney this Christmas so it was an wonderful blessing to be with family and friends this Christmas. There was lots of food, time with family and too many presents.

Target Asia

Last month we shared at the OMF Target Asia meeting along with other missionaries on home assignment, missionaries preparing to leave for the field and short-termers who had recently returned. OMF Australia organise 4 Target Asia meetings per year. I find them extremely helpful in finding out what God is doing in other parts of Asia and working in the lives of people. Unfortunately, the majority of the attendees (apart from those who were there to share) were older people. What would be do without these faithful and prayerful older people? How can we get younger people to attend these great meetings?

The next Target Asia meeting is on Saturday 20 February. I encourage you to go if you live in Sydney. The meeting is for the morning only and concludes with Lunch together. Contact OMF Australia for details.

Kiama. The best place in the world?

Last week we had a week's holiday in Kiama, which is about 2 hours drive south of Sydney. Lisa's parent's were able to join us for the first 3 days and my parents for the final 3. It was so good to be able to have our parents on holidays with us to help look after the children and help with cooking and cleaning so that it actually could be a sort of holiday for us and not just looking after the children.

Lisa's parents met an English couple on holidays in Kiama and they claimed that it was the best place in the world! I don't know about that but we certainly had a lovely time there and there were plenty of things to do with a young family. We went to beach most days were our eldest son started to get into body surfing. There were great parks and paths for the kids to scoot on. In the last couple of days we went fishing which was great fun (for me and hopefully for everyone else too). At night with the washing up done by our mother's while we were putting the kids to bed, we could actually have a couple of hours at night to relax. Nice.

All in all it was a fantastic holiday and it ended all too quickly.

Pain and the Chinese acupuncture man

Last Sunday morning I was helping one of sons in the bathroom and I just leaned forward when I felt a jolt of excruciating pain in my lower back. I couldn't get back up again so I had to drag myself across the floor and spent some time resting on my back. I've never had any problems with my back apart from some minor niggles which always went away so I was hoping that within a couple of hours I'd be o.k. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. I was able to start walking again but with considerable pain. My parents called a Chinese man who'd helped my uncle's back with acupuncture and he was able to come that evening. I was willing to try anything at that stage if it would fix the problem.

He told me to lie on my stomach. He dug into my back with his thumbs to see where the pain was and then started to stick the pins in for acupuncture. That wasn't too bad until he started to twirl the pins around while they were still in my back and then it started to hurt. I thought I was just in for acupuncture, but then he starts grabbing my legs and twists my back to manipulate my spine. It was the most pain I've felt in my life and I was screaming in pain. The kids had been watching up until that stage but then they were led away. At that point I thought calling this man might have been a grave mistake. I was concerned that he was doing more harm than good. All would have been forgiven if at the end all my pain had disappeared. Unfortunately, I was a little better but still in considerable pain. I'm slowly getting better but there is still a lot of pain when walking and my mum notices that my right hip is higher than my left when I walk. Fortunately, Lisa's back is not too bad right now, otherwise we'd be in a lot of bother. I'm praying that it continues to get better day by day.

The lighthouse SOLD!

We heard news from our team mates in Lampang that "The Lighthouse" our outreach centre has been sold by the owners. The team has 2 months to move out. This is disappointing because we have spent a considerable about of money and effort fixing the place up and in advertising only to have to move after a year and half. However, we trust that God has his purposes in this happening. Please pray for the team as they are considering another property right now and whether God would have us rent this property or another one.

Daughter's 1st birthday

Our daughter had her 1st birthday last week . For Koreans and many other Asians the 1st birthday is very important. It must be celebrated on for before the day but not after the actual birthday. She is wearing the traditional Korean dress ("hanbok"). It was good to be able to celebrate her birthday with family here in Australia but it would have been nice to be able to share her birthday with our neighhours in Thailand and see what customs surround the 1st birthday there.

Are we all missionaries?

We were visiting one of our supporting Churches and the sermon on Sunday happened to be on Romans 9-10. In Romans 10 is the famous missionary passage:- 14How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" (ESV). The minister told the congregation that is wasn't only "Rich and Lisa" who are missionaries but that everyone in the congregation are missionaries (to their neighbors etc) I've heard this said countless times before so it didn't think anything else of it. However, I was reading the above book this week (in the excellent chapter titled Amateurization and Professionalization) and it challenged this assertion that "we are all missionaries".

"The general call for missionary volunteers with which we are familiar in missions is often reinforced by the urgent reminder that 'we are all missionaries'. This is confusion compounded. In the first place, there is no general call for missionary volunteers in the New Testament. All New Testament missionaries were personally conscripted by Christ, his apostle and their representatives, or by Holy Spirit-directed churches.

In the second place, although all followers of Christ are called to be witnesses, it is not true that all are called to be missionaries, any more than all are called to be pastors". (p.215).

I think Hesslegrave's right. Any objections?

Christchurch Thursday Women's Group

This morning Lisa spoke at the Thursday WEB group at Christchurch St Ives which is group of about 100 women. She is a last minute person so the last couple of nights have been very late. Her presentation consisted of a letter to our daughter. By the sounds of it, the presentation went well.

What I'm reading now: Revolution in World Mission

Generally an offer of a free book raises my suspicions and I don't take up the offer because I have to divulge my name and address (call me paranoid). However, this free book was advertised on the Biblegateway website which is quite a respectable site and the title caught my attention so I ordered the free book.

I was quite surprised by the book. Basically, K.P Yohannan, the founder of the mission organisation Gospel for Asia asserts that western churches should stop sending western missionaries to Asia but instead use that money to support native missionaries. Native missionaries cost a fraction of the money required to support a Western missionary and native missionaries are much more effective. He sights a couple of exceptions. Perhaps western missionaries are needed in countries like Afghanistan and a few countries like that where there are very few Christians and no native missionaries. The rest, we should be supporting native missionaries.

The other significant thrust of the book is that western churches are prejudiced in terms of there giving. They give money to their own missionaries without much accountability for how effective they are but when it comes to giving money to native missionary organisation, they demand accountability and request someone from the organisation to sit on the governing committee in the local country.

He conceded that western missionary were necessary in the past in places like China to bring the gospel to that country. But now he argues that most western missionaries are either just doing social work rather than preaching the gospel or they are just ineffective.

It is true that native missionaries cost much less and usually are much more effective in evangelising their own people. And yes, some missionary are probably not very effective on the mission field and really should be back in their home country.

However, I doubt that if western church stopped sending western missionaries and just gave money to native missionaries, that we would see the great advance in the cause of world missions which K.P seems to suggest. Some might think that because they have given money to support native missionaries and prayed for them that they've done their bit for world mission.

K.P raises some important issues which we need to reflect upon. Gospel for Asia seem to be doing an amazing work. But I don't think the answer is as clear cut as K.P implies and he focuses too much on his experiences of ineffective western missionaries but neglects those who are being used tremendously by God. The book is free from here.