jodiemcneill.com

It is remarkable to reflect on the way in which God chose to create his universe. Everywhere we turn there is evidence of his lavish love and creativity; the boldness of a sunset… the beauty of a tulip… the brightness of the sun.

One particular area in which we see his creativity is in music. Music has the power to move people in a way that words fail to achieve. It can lift us to new heights, and take us on a journey to places unexpected.

At the 2004 TWIST Music Conference, Mike Raiter spoke of the power of the song. In referring to the wonderful Colin Buchanan concert the night before, he said that because of his gift of music, Colin could have taken our crowd anywhere. “But”, he observed, “aren’t we thankful that he took us to God!”

We know the power of music. We use it every week to proclaim God’s praises. Yet, we want to make sure we use this powerful tool to achieve the best possible outcomes.

That’s why it’s important our musicians are well trained. That’s why the TWIST Music Conference is such an important event for our musicians.

Registrations close Monday night, and the conference begins the Saturday after. Don’t miss out on stimulating teaching from Mike Raiter, terrific congregational music from some of Australia’s most gifted musos, and invaluable hands-on training in many great workshops.

Full details at www.twist.org.au. Don’t miss out!

The PM’s gap year push for the Australian Defense Force is a good idea. Read an article on my view at your.sydneyanglicans.net and see my media release from earlier today:

ANGLICAN CHURCH, DIOCESE OF SYDNEY

MEDIA RELEASE - FROM ANGLICAN YOUTHWORKS
9th August, 2007

Gap year is good policy from the PM, says Anglican Youth Leader

“It would be easy to cynically dismiss the Prime Minister’s push for defence force gap year recruits as a quick fix for dwindling numbers of ADF staff. However, Howard has rightly identified the benefits of taking a ‘year off’ to help school-leavers make wise decisions about their future,” said Jodie McNeill, Director of Anglican Youthworks Year 13 Gap Year.

“For the student, it offers a break from thirteen years of study. It provides an opportunity to carefully consider the appropriate career choices, and to make sure that students make wise decisions about tertiary and vocational training,” he said  “Too many people waste their time and money commencing unsuitable courses.

“This also puts an unnecessary stress on our universities and colleges. When students pull out of courses mid-year, they rob others of the opportunity to learn, and deprive the institutions of much-needed income.

“It also places a drain upon the taxpayer. Many of these drop-outs inevitably require income support, especially due to their lack of vocational or higher educational training. Inevitably they tread water for six months, awaiting the beginning of college or university in the following year.

“More positively, when a school-leaver spends a year learning about their own strengths and weaknesses, and evaluating their vocational preferences, it helps them to begin the next year’s study with greater motivation. They study a course they want to complete, not just the course for which they earned enough marks.

“What’s more, they can take the opportunity to travel overseas, and to see how they fit into the world. There is no better way to discover the wealth of Australia than to experience the poverty of other nations.

“Our team of 26 students in the Year 13 Gospel Gap Year has just returned from Kenya, Africa. Their month-long trip has taught them lessons they would never learn in a classroom, and given them insights they could never get from the Discovery Channel.

“Yet, apart from the self-awareness benefits, a gap year allows school leavers to give something back to others. Whether it’s caring for AIDS patients in a slum in Nairobi, or caring for kids in a disability camp in Sydney, a gap year gives an opportunity to serve others. In our Year 13 program, we also teach life-skills such as first-aid, defensive driving and vocational guidance, as well as theology.

“Recruiting people into the ADF through the gap-year front-door is good policy. It allows potential defence force personnel to make sure they are suited to this specialised work by getting a real view of the military world without a long-term commitment. But, it also gives these school-leavers an opportunity to serve—something we need more of in our increasingly materialistic society.”

CONTACT :         Jodie McNeill                 0425 222 338
(Jodie McNeill is Director of the Anglican Youthworks Year 13 Gospel Gap Year)

I also enjoyed an extended interview with John Morrison on the ABC Statewide Drive program at 5:15pm today.

When does style overtake substance? This is one of the perennial issues in youth ministry–especially in music. Read my latest column at sydneyanglicans.net

Here’s an excerpt:

Now I recognise that speaking this way does little to give me youth ministry street-cred (or whatever it’s called these days). I am at great risk of being labelled out-of-touch, over-the-hill, geriatric, or whatever term of endearment the younger folk might care to give me. But I wonder whether or not there are certain tempos and vocal styles that are incompatible with congregational singing, even for a group of people who are regular listeners of heavy metal?

Yesterday, I farewelled my dear Nana, Joan Wood. She was a fine, Christian woman, who has been a major influence on my life. As the Apostle Paul reflected upon Timothy (2 Timothy 1:5), my faith first lived in my grandmother, and her Christian life and witness has been a firm foundations upon which my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ has been based.

I had the wonderful privilege of conducting the funeral service, and delivering the eulogy and sermon (scroll down to read). I also designed the service sheet (click here to view in low-res PDF) and created the following slideshow:

Here is the text of the sermon I delivered at the funeral:

As we gather here today to pay tribute to Joan, there’s a sadness we share, knowing that we won’t see her again in this life.

We are sad that when we drop around to her house, she won’t be there to put on the kettle for us… or to laugh with us as we share our stories … or to hear her wisdom in our times of need.

We miss her, and it brings us sadness. In this time of grief, what we want more than anything is to feel love.

Where do you go for love? To whom do you turn?

What about God? Have you turned to him for love? Have you opened your arms to accept his comfort and compassion?

You might be a person who regularly prays to God, and who hears his voice in the pages of the Bible. You trust his promises, and have received his forgiveness. If that’s you, then no doubt you’ve turned to him this week in this time of need.

Or maybe you’ve never really had anything to do with God. Perhaps you’re not the praying type. Maybe it’s never crossed your mind to pray to him. You might be angry with him, or just not want to acknowledge he exists.

Well, no matter how you feel towards God, it’s important to know that God knows you, and he loves you. Whether or not you believe in God, you can know that God believes in you.

In our first Bible reading from Psalm 139, we read these opening words:

 1 O LORD, you have searched me
       and you know me.
 2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
       you perceive my thoughts from afar.
 3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
       you are familiar with all my ways.
 
Whether or not you believe in God, you can know that God believes in you! He knows everything about you, more than anyone else. As it says in this verse, he even knows our thoughts.

But that’s only the beginning. Verse 13:

 13 For you created my inmost being;
       you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

And verses 15 and 16:

 15 My frame was not hidden from you
       when I was made in the secret place.
       When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
 16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
       All the days ordained for me
       were written in your book
       before one of them came to be.

In these verses God makes it clear to us that he knew us before we were born, from the time he created us. And, he continues to know everything about us that has already happened, and everything that will happen to us in the future.

When Joan was curled up inside Rosie Higgott’s womb, God knew her. Every thought through her long and distinguished life was known to God.

And what is true of Joan is also true of you and of me. God knows everything about us. He knows what makes us happy; he knows what makes us sad; he knows our joys and our fears.

And for that reason, he is able to love us like no one else. He is able to comfort us like no one else.

This love of God is so incredible, that the Apostle Paul, in our second Bible reading, prays that we’ll somehow understand this amazing love.

Let me read his words again:

 And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

God’s love is huge! It’s wide… it’s long… high… it’s deep… In fact, it’s so massive that it’s almost beyond comprehension. And did you see the irony in his prayer? He prays that we will know this love that surpasses knowledge! That we’ll know the thing that we can’t fully know!

God’s love is amazing. It is truly mind-blowing!

But what makes it so amazing is the passion with which Jesus loves us.

In the movie ‘The Passion of the Christ’, the viewers were presented with a graphic portrayal of the final hours of the life of Jesus. He died a violent and humiliating death. He was executed in the most painful way known to humanity.

But what is most remarkable about his death is that he didn’t deserve that punishment. He was innocent of his charges. Yet, he willingly died so that we could know his love.

How does the death of that man 2000 years ago have any impact on our lives today? How does his death show us his love?

It’s because when he died, he chose to take God’s anger upon himself, instead of us. The Bible tells us that we all deserve for God to be angry with us, because none of us, by nature, submit to his rule. None of us are born wanting to give God control of our lives. None of us naturally want Jesus as our king.

And for that reason, God has every reason to be angry with us.

Let’s imagine one of my kids, on their eighteenth birthday, told me that they never wanted to see me again. Imagine if they changed their identity, left the country, and rejected me as their father. I’d have every reason to be angry with the child I brought up. I’d have every reason to be angry at their rejection.

That’s how it is with God and us. All of us naturally reject God. And God has every reason to be angry with us.

And that’s where death came from. We weren’t born to die. We were born to live forever. Death is an appalling thing. It goes against every bone in our body. But, we all deserve it because we have all naturally turned away from God.

But, God loves us. And we know that because even though we were his enemies, Christ died for us. Do you want to know the love of God? See the crucified Jesus. See him hanging in pain and humiliation. And on his face, you will see love.

But the great news is that Jesus proved that his death was successful. It was powerful over death. He rose from the dead three days later. Death is no longer the end of our existence. There is now life after death.

When I entered Nana’s hospital room last Thursday night, I was confronted again with mortality. Nana lay in her bed, lifeless. Her body remained, but her spirit had gone. After I had shared a hug with my mum, and Julie and Simon and Bev, I embraced Pa for what seemed like ages. And then he asked me to pray.

What could I pray for? What was there to say? Nana was dead. Her body was lifeless. We were never going to see her again in this life. How could there be hope? How could I say anything that might help us in our grief?

Well, in my prayer, I went back to the love of God. That love that is so wide, long, high and deep. That was the thing we could hold on to.

Because, quite simply, Joan knew the love of Christ. During her years on this earth, she had asked for God’s forgiveness, and had received his gift of eternal life. Because Jesus died for Joan, her own death is not the end of her story.

Behind me, here, is a body. It is the beautiful body of Joan Wood, our friend. But she is no longer here with us. She is in paradise with Jesus. She is face to face with her saviour and friend, enjoying the life that we were all created to experience. She no longer sees through cloudy eyes… she no longer walks in frailty… she no longer struggles to remember the words just spoken. She is enjoying life to the full.

Do you know that life? Do you know that love?

A event like this reminds us that we all face death. Between now and that day we all have a choice. Will you accept the love of Jesus? Will you accept his forgiveness? Will you let him take God’s anger from your shoulders and place it on his own?

I speak with passion because I know that this is a matter of life and death. I learnt that in the youth group that I attended at this church in the 1980s. Nana was instrumental in me coming to youth group to hear about Jesus’ love. And, praise God, I did.

As I grew older, I never grew out of God. Nana was one of the most encouraging people in my Christian life. There were countless times that she sat me down and asked me to help her with a theological question she’d been struggling with through her personal Bible readings, or through her church women’s group, or through a Christian book she’d been reading. She longed to know more of Jesus’ love. And when I finally made the decision to leave the family travel business to become a Christian minister, she, along with David, was one of my greatest supporters. Even last week, as I read the Bible to her as she lay in her hospital bed, she became animated as she heard the word of God. “Yes, that’s right!” she cried. “Yes!” she said. Nana knew the love of Jesus. And I know that she would want to make sure that you know it, too.

Today is a sad day because we miss Joan. But it is a joyful and happy day, because we know that Nana is with the Lord Jesus.

We speak confidently about Nana’s eternal future in Jesus Christ. But are you able to speak so confidently about yours? I know for sure that there would be nothing that would make Joan happier than for all of her friends and family to know Jesus’ love. And so, I pray, as I know she would too, that we would…

   have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

   20Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

At church on Sunday I roadtested the radical suggestion I made in last month’s sydneyanglicans.net article entitled ‘The word of God, loud and clear’. In this article, I suggested the following:

“In normal situations, we listen to the Bible read before the preacher explains and expands the text. Wouldn’t it be better to hear the Bible expounded, and then hear it read? The text would gain even greater clarity, and the meaning would be amplified by the exposition just presented by the preacher.”

Well, it might shock you to know that before I had written the article, I had never seen this done in real life. It was simply an exercise in kite-flying, so to speak.

Anyway, when I put together the runsheet on Sunday for the gathering I was leading, I gave it a try, and it worked a treat. Not only did the Bible reader read with more clarity (since she had just been given a twenty-minute preparation for her task), but the whole congregation also benefited from hearing the word of God, after it was explained.

What’s more, it made the reading of the Word appear to have a centrality in the gathering that I’ve not experienced before. It was as if the reading of the sermon passage was the peak of the word ministry.

Have you ever tried this retrospective reading? Have you ever witnessed it first-hand?