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Planting seeds of gospel

Every school day around 45,000 young Australians pass through the gate of a Lutheran school or early childhood service somewhere in Australia.

Many come with parents or grandparents who stay for chapel or get involved with other activities around the school.

They become part of the school community and give school leaders and staff wonderful opportunities to minister and touch people’s lives with the gospel.
Here’s just one such story from Lutheran Education Australia Executive Director Stephen Rudolph:
‘Recently I attended a Lutheran school’s 30th year reunion. I was a special guest – the founding principal! The weekend’s activities included a reunion dinner and a Lutheran church service. Arriving at the dinner, I was confronted by many young men and women – all graduates of this Lutheran school. They excitedly told me their life stories – marriage, jobs, courses, children, memories.

‘Lucy* was one of them. But she wasn’t bubbly – she just wanted to tell me her story. And she wanted to thank me and the people of the Lutheran school of the early 1980s.
‘After high school, Lucy went back to Sydney. She got involved with the wrong crowd. As she spoke, her weak smile showed her poor teeth. She told me that due to her teenage drug taking, her teeth had been damaged.

‘I noticed her wedding ring. She told me of her husband, her three children and of her reformed life.

‘She also told me of her Christian faith and reminded me of my guitar and singing skills during devotions. She remembered the musical Sam the Good Samaritan – and could still sing the songs.

‘Lucy then reminded me of her mother’s death and her funeral. I had forgotten. The upper primary class had all attended her mother’s funeral. The students said I played the guitar. I had forgotten. Lucy had this memory etched in her heart for the past 30 years. She just wanted to say thank you for the care shown to her and her family. I had forgotten.

‘And while I forgot the care shown to Lucy 30 years earlier, she hadn’t.

‘Let us all acknowledge the principals and staff of Lutheran schools and early childhood services as they care for and minister to their communities – especially their students.
‘The constant of Lutheran schools is to share the good news of Jesus Christ. Let us never forget that.

‘And Lucy, thank you for helping me remember this truth and how God uses each one of us to care, lead and serve.’

*Not her real name

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Centre at heart of church story

Did you know Central Australia is as ‘Lutheran’ as Toowoomba in Queensland or South Australia’s Barossa Valley?

Every week thousands of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Lutherans worship in six different languages in around 40 communities dotted over an area larger than Victoria.

Every year, 28 Lutheran pastors – 20 of them Indigenous – conduct hundreds of baptisms and confirmations, hold many bush training courses for Indigenous church leaders, and sit, pray, worship, understand and teach. God’s hand has guided this amazing Lutheran story for 140 years.

Finke River Mission (FRM), together with Alice Springs Lutheran Church, Lutheran Community Care, Yirara College and Living Waters Lutheran School, brings God’s saving gospel to Lutherans in Central Australia.

FRM also operates a general store and the Historic Precinct at Hermannsburg, approximately 120 kilometres west of Alice Springs, both at the request of the local community.

From choir trips to Germany and the USA, to bush training and tertiary courses, pastors conferences and language resources, and hospital and jail visiting – Central Australia is a very busy place for the Lutheran church!

Thankfully each year dozens of people from congregations all over Australia give their time, money and labour to support our church workers and to help maintain places of worship and other buildings.

These opportunities are ideal for congregational or interest groups (men, women, youth) – and for grey nomads escaping cold winters elsewhere, but prayer and donations from afar are also important!

Whatever way you look at it, the Lutheran church in the ‘Centre’ is an important part of the wider LCA. We hope to see you soon!

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Building inclusive communities

Cross-Cultural Ministry exists to nurture an inclusive missional culture in the LCA/NZ.

Our aim is for new and existing cross-cultural communities to be developed, strengthened and integrated into the life of the church. We support the districts of the church in ministering to and with new arrivals, and we encourage the celebration of cultural expressions of the one faith.

One of the many LCA/NZ congregations engaged in Cross-Cultural Ministry within its community is Zion Lutheran Church Glynde in Adelaide’s eastern suburbs.

Barbara Mattiske, the congregation’s Cross Cultural Coordinator, explains how Zion members serve alongside people of different national backgrounds within their community and what this ministry means to them.

‘We feel blessed to be a part of our local community, and the many cultures who come here. I believe that the people who come here feel that this is a safe place to be, where they feel the safety and love of God.

‘Each month our church produces a paper with articles written by members of our community. It is a great way of communicating what happens here during the week or, as we call it, our mid-week church.

‘Our mid-week church starts on Wednesday mornings with Playgroup,
a small group with mums and dads from our Glynde church and our mid-week church, where we encourage parents to interact with their children through craft and play.

‘We also run a three-week DVD study series each term after Playgroup.

‘On Thursdays we have Mainly Music, with between 20 and 30 children attending. Following the structured section, we offer morning tea. God provides many opportunities during this time for friendships and openness.

‘On Fridays we have a parenting course and English classes with a crèche available. This is followed by Coffee and Chat at which people share many deep thoughts and concerns. So many “God moments” happen on Fridays. English classes are also held on Saturday mornings.

‘In addition to these, we have a Girls Night Out each term, a special time in worship when we say thank you to God for babies, and we share a multicultural Sunday together.

‘We also have special links with our Korean congregation and our Nuer Sudanese congregation, which worships within the Glynde community as well as having their own traditional language worship services.

‘How blessed are we!’

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Being single … a calling not a failing

by Emma Graetz

‘Are you married?’ – This is one of the most common questions I am asked when I meet someone for the first time. As a single person, it is also the question that places me instantly in a social box – it’s the box of pity about my current social status.

Ironically, the most common response to my social status is, ‘Oh – you’re not married. Don’t worry – he’s out there somewhere. Have you tried online dating?’

I do not speak on behalf of all single people. Each one of us has a different story and reason for our singleness. For some, this is a constant daily struggle and for others, there is an acceptance of our circumstance.

For me, I have come to realise that being single doesn’t define who I am. First and foremost, I am a child of God. That is who I am. This is the one thing I have in common with everyone I meet whether they are in a relationship or not. After that, every person has a life story that is unique to them and that needs to be honoured and respected.

My life story started with a plan. My plan was not to stress about being in a relationship and to just enjoy the early years of my working life, living overseas and interstate until I reached my late 20s. At this age, I then planned to meet the man of my dreams, get married and start having a family. Over a decade later, I now realise I actually had a dream, and God had the plan. Working through the heartbreak of a dream not being fulfilled has been a challenge and taken a lot of personal reflection.

Questions I would ask myself included ‘What is it about me?’; ‘What have I done wrong to prevent me finding someone who will love me?’; ‘Had I made wrong choices that led me to a life of singleness?’; ‘If only I lost more weight, or joined more social groups – would this help me find the man of my dreams?’. Of course, throughout this self-reflection, there were also many tearful prayers to God asking ‘Why me? Why doesn’t anyone love me for who I am?’.

It was strange, though, how God constantly answered my tearful prayers. He didn’t miraculously place someone in my life to start dating. Instead, he showed me a reason why my singleness mattered. He has called me into a life of singleness and I need to embrace that as my vocation and be content with this current life situation.

My life is no less because I don’t have a husband or children. My life is full of blessing and as part of my singleness journey, I need to rejoice in this and become content with what God has provided for me. Philippians 4:11 has been a cornerstone of comfort for me as I have embraced singleness: ‘I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation’.

My secret is to see singleness as my vocation, not my failure. Being content brings you to a place that doesn’t seek what you think you should have, but instead looks at what you do have and sees the blessings. To accept this contentment has been a very freeing experience for me. I have even taken the bold steps of being completely comfortable to go by myself to the movies, or go to a café and enjoy brunch and a good book, or even travel overseas.

As I near the later end of my child-bearing years, there is a real reality that I might not have children of my own. Even though that has been upsetting at times for me, I have come to a real sense of peace on this issue, mainly because I no longer feel like I have missed out on having children. My family has given me three beautiful nephews I am able to call my own. I have eight wonderful Godchildren and even at church and through other friendship groups, I have a number of children who see me as a significant adult in their lives.

My biggest heartache currently stems from the question, ‘How do we as church, embrace people like myself, who are single either by choice or circumstance, and include them in the vibrant life of the church?’. I’ve fought hard for years to be recognised as someone who has worth and value to contribute to groups like church councils and committees. Previously, because I am both single and a woman, I have been perceived by some people as not having the necessary life experience or wisdom.

My encouragement to churches is to see single people as bringing a different perspective to your mission and ministry activities. An even greater challenge is to think about how to incorporate them into the social community of the church, especially when they might not fit into young adults groups or women’s or men’s fellowships age-wise, and they may not connect with family social groups if they don’t have children. Single people still want to be part of a community that cares and includes them regardless of their relationship status.

Being single might not be my story forever – only God knows that outcome. For now though, I am committed to embracing my singleness as a calling and delighting in seeing where and how God uses me as part of his bigger plan for his kingdom here on earth.

Emma Graetz is Director of VET (Vocational Education and Training) at Australian Lutheran College.

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Single again but never alone

by Vic Pfitzner

I didn’t ask to lose my wife just before our golden wedding nearly five years ago but one of us had to die first. I didn’t ask to grow old, but I’ve always known that getting old and death are inevitable.

As a Christian, however, I know that what matters is not what happens – like the death of a partner and getting old – but how I live at every stage of life. I am not defined by loss, or age, but by my state as a person blessed by God. I remain called by God; I still have a vocation.

It’s easy to have our sense of self-worth defined by loss. There’s the loss of a previous ‘calling’, a career. Retirement can bring relief, but also crisis.

Society tends to define us in terms of what we do in terms of paid occupation.

The second question at introductions (after the exchange of names) is usually, ‘And what do you do?’ When asked that, I am tempted as a retiree to list activities to justify my existence – or to say that I was once an important person with a big job. To hopefully initiate a discussion, I have sometimes said, ‘I don’t do anything really. I’m just a widower and retired!’

Of course, the pain of loss is real. Loss of a spouse creates grief that may include self-accusation over failures to care for and understand the one we loved and lived with for decades. There may be guilt over lost opportunities in our role as parent.

Husband or wife was a noble calling; can that be said for a widow(er)? Then there is the loss of family and friends: old age means funerals and faded friendships!

Obviously, there is the loss of physical and mental strength, one’s ‘parts’ go missing. There is loss of hearing and sight, the increasingly pressing need to make ‘final arrangements’. No wonder we oldies can spend so much time recalling the good times when our lives were complete instead of fragmented. The temptation is to live in the past when we had real vocations! But for Christians, self-worth is not determined by what we do or have done in life, nor by our marital status, possessions, or standing in society – least of all by our looks. It is determined by knowing who we are: people in vocation.

When St Paul teaches that everyone should live the life that God has assigned and in which one was called (1 Corinthians 7:17) he is referring to a twofold vocation. First there is the call to be a believer, a child of God, a saint bound for eternity. Secondly, there is the call to live worthy of that calling in whatever situation we find ourselves. This is the call we generally mean when speaking of vocation (see Philippians 1:27).

What Paul is saying is that my behavior should match my being as a ‘new creation’. No matter what my present position or my social and relationship status in life may be, I am always embraced by the eternal love of God and called to share that love. I am part of God’s amazing creation and called to look after it. I am a member of the family of the redeemed and called to serve those in God’s household. I am a member of a human family of relatives and friends and called to act in their best interests. I am a citizen of Australia and called to obey its laws and contribute to the welfare of society.

Because we are ageless children of God we are never alone. We may be elderly and lack the company and support of a spouse but even these negatives can be turned into positives.

Living the life of a disciple means living with face turned forward to God’s future, remembering the past but not living in it. For those who now live in Christ, all the losses of this life will eventually lead to eternal gain (Philippians 1:21). Our lives may seem to be going downhill, but we have an upward call (3:14) in the Lord who suffered loss on the hill of Calvary before ascending to glory. That’s our final great vocation.

Rev Dr Vic Pfitzner is a renowned Lutheran theologian, a prolific writer on a wide range of subjects of faith and the church, and an emeritus lecturer at Australian Lutheran College. He was a member of Luther Seminary’s founding faculty in 1968, a lecturer there in New Testament from 1968 to 2004, and principal from 1989 to 1997.

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I saw Jesus today

by Jonathan Krause

I saw Jesus today … she was waiting in a queue for food being stirred in a pot over a fire by a refugee called Regina.

Regina is here at Kakuma Refugee Camp because bombs fell on her home. Her children saw people die.

‘I have nobody here at Kakuma, but I know that education is the biggest gift I can give my children’, she says. ‘That is why we are here, and why I work in this kitchen. After we arrived, I was one year without a job.

‘I was praying very hard God will bring me a job because I did not have any money to help my children. I kept coming here in the reception centre asking for a job.

‘I worked for one month without pay, and then I got this official job. They had seen my efforts, and my good work, and so they gave me a job. I see LWF as like my own people, my family.

‘If you ask me where God is, then I say to you God is there even when the bombs come. We had to pray. No matter how many problems you face, you must put God first.’

I was hungry and you fed me.

I saw Jesus today … just an 8-year-old boy, he shepherded two of his family’s goats to the water pump drilled 100 metres deep into the sand alongside the dried-up riverbed.

Naferitom, a woman who seems as ancient as the landscape, speaks for the boy and the village gathered around her in a scrap of shade.

‘Now we are very happy’, she says. ‘We can wash our clothes. Even the children can collect water easily. We pray this borehole may be here for a very long time. We are saying “thank you”, and may God bless you.’

I was thirsty and you gave me a drink.

I saw Jesus today … the 18 year old is dad of his family now.

Miraj’s father was hunted by enemies, and now hides in another country. His sister Nadia contracted malaria and it’s left her paralysed and unable to talk. A little brother and little sister are in hospital. His mother is so stressed by it all, she cannot cope. It’s all up to Miraj now. He sits in the 2 metre x 3 metre space at the Kakuma Reception Centre that is ‘home’ for the next few days while permanent shelter is organised.

‘I don’t feel we will ever be able to go back to Burundi. I don’t see any hope back there – the land is taken, everything is gone. I just want to be a normal person, going to school.’

I was homeless and you gave me a room.

I saw Jesus today … there were three of them, two sisters and a cousin, leaned up against their mud hut.

‘Our parents died in 2012 during the conflict in South Sudan’, Diana says.

‘We heard gunshots in the night. We were staying in the village with neighbours. Everybody ran. We walked from our home to Tonj. It took three days.

‘Here we are at school together. We are all in Grade 5.

‘LWF are very good people. They look after us very much.’

Judith is in rags, but Diana and Joy wear yellow head scarves – they are going to church to sing in the choir. Tomorrow they will put on school uniforms sewn for them by a woman trained to be a tailor by the LWF team our Lutheran family supports.

I was shivering and you gave me clothes.

I saw Jesus today … he had laid down the guns and power he’d commanded as a captain in the army in Ethiopia and taken up arms at a rusty pedal sewing machine instead.

Mulugeta sweats stitches into simple dresses he sells for shillings.

He uses the coins to buy whatever medicine the market may offer for his daughter who is twisted by palsy and ‘sits’ in a chair within touching distance of his sewing machine.

Mulugeta pleads, ‘Please, please can you do something for my girl, my Meron?’.

‘When Meron was born, the midwife was not a professional. She pulled her out forcibly. She cannot be improved in Djibouti.

‘Meron’s mind is brilliant. She can remember names very well. She has no pain, but is physically unable to move. With this condition, her future is dark. But God knows what will be. God is everywhere.

‘Meron is happy when people come and take her out in the camp. She likes to see children playing. She has one teacher, and she is learning. She even tries to walk.’

I was sick and you stopped to visit.

I saw Jesus today … after she had been kidnapped and raped.

When she escaped, Angelina was rescued by the team our Lutheran family supports.

‘On behalf of every child here, especially those who are suffering, I would like to thank all who help us’, she tells me.

‘When I was trapped in the community, I was thinking, “How can I get out?”. Now you have rescued me. If not for you, I don’t know where I would be. I thank you and pray may God help you to stay a long time in this world.’

I was in prison and you came to me.

I saw Jesus today … when I visited the refugee camps our Lutheran family supports through ALWS on the borders of South Sudan and Somalia.

The Australian Government warns against travelling to these countries, but there you are, welcoming strangers as they knock on the door.

You cook the food with Regina. You add the metres of pipe to make the borehole once again reach the watertable, so that Naferitom’s body is no longer broken by her burden.

You give Miraj and Nadia a mattress to sleep on.

You taught the tailor who sewed those school uniforms for Diana, Joy and Judith. You massage the calves of Meron, help stretch her limbs, and offer your shoulder to Mulugeta when the hurt is too much. You give new hope to the rescued Angelina.

‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me – you did it to me.’ Jesus

I saw Jesus today … and he, she, they, told me to thank you.

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Go, share your faith

We know from Matthew 28:19 that we are to ‘go and make disciples of all nations’. But while some people find that sharing their faith comes naturally, for others of us it may even be something we dread. We asked Dean Eaton, from the LCA’s Local Mission office, for some tips, strategies and words of encouragement.

by Dean Eaton

How do I share my faith with others in a way that feels natural and meaningfully contributes to them coming to know God through Jesus Christ? Here are a few ways to gain the confidence and skills required.

1. Go share your faith

We often think about sharing our faith as sharing a testimony. Many resources get you to learn how to ‘tell your story’, your testimony of Christ. For some this is helpful. For many Christians however, it is precisely where we get stuck. Why? Because we don’t have one clear, linear story to tell.

I know how this feels. I am a church kid. I grew up in the church. You may have been ‘saved’ as a child when you were baptised, but when it comes to your personal testimony or ‘conversion story’, like me, you may feel you don’t really have one.

I can remember at the age of five having a clear realisation that all of my sins were forgiven because Christ died for me. So what’s the backstory to that? I struggled with potty training and realised I was a sinner in need of salvation?

Since the age of five, my story of ‘conversion’ is more like a broken jigsaw puzzle of experiences with God. Many times of realisation (or revelation) about who God is and who I am. Some very emotional experiences but an equal number of joy-filled ones and remorseful ones.

What liberated me to witness? What was it that changed me from being stuck without a ‘testimony’, to someone who could be used by God to reap the harvest, seeing many hundreds of people become Christians over my lifetime? It was the realisation that we are not asked essentially to testify about our faith but rather about Christ’s faith.

In practical terms, I am suggesting that we confess our faith journey to people as one of many failed attempts to be the faithful person God wants us to be. This goes alongside the moments in which we’ve experienced a great capacity to love others with a love that seemed to come from the gracious hand of God himself. That we experience God as present but often discreet, sometimes even hidden in the shadows of our lives.

Therefore, we are exhorted to go and share honestly about our experience of being on a faith journey, but our testimony is not about us but about Jesus Christ.

2. Go find your third spaces

If Jesus is the content of what I share, what is the context?

In one word, relationships.

Jesus spent a lot of time at street level sharing his invitation to come to him for forgiveness and new life with God. John 1:14 says, ‘The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood’ (The Message).

In your life you spend time in three main spaces. The first space is where you live, your home. The second space is your work (volunteer or paid), or place of study.

Third spaces are usually local to you and are the places in which you participate in recreation and commerce, such as your shopping mall, dog-walking park, sporting or hobby club, cafe, playgroup, library, and so on.

Why do we spend so much time, energy and effort as Christians setting up third spaces – meaning community outreach programs or events, usually in our church facilities – rather than doing what Jesus did?

3. Go with attitude

If Jesus is the content and third spaces in the community are the best context, what are some of the attitudes and skills I will need to be able to share my faith in a way that pleases God?

• Be a humble co-learner. Jesus did witnessing with not to people. This is witnessing as a mutually transformative, co-learning endeavour. Be a co-discoverer of God’s grace rather than a religious expert. Jesus didn’t come across as the sage on the stage but rather as a guide on the side. He had real conversations, in which he humbly listened as well as spoke.

• Have a listening ear. Jesus had two-way dialogue with people and the Holy Spirit to discern where a person was on their journey. Are they apathetic or antagonistic (stage 1), merely interested (stage 2), curious (stage 3), investigating (stage 4) or converting (stage 5)? Which stepping stone – resource, biblical information, help – do they need to progress their understanding and experience of God’s grace?

• Ask good questions. Memorise at least these basic questions to ask people when you are in conversations.
 Were you raised in a particular religion?
 What do you believe in?
 Why do you believe that?
 Did you know that Jesus once told a story about …?

There is a helpful section on asking good questions in the book SENT Seeking the Orphans of God (p 93,94).

4. Go with a clear invitation

How do you find the right words to be able invite people to experience salvation?

Study the Bible.

A good gospel sharer needs to study the word of God in both an accurate translation as well as a good paraphrase such as The Message. This is because Romans 12:1–3 in The Message’s paraphrase describes in everyday common language the outcomes of ‘turning around’ – repentance. However, to describe the experience of salvation, one must go to Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11–32. Here we see the invitation is about coming home, being forgiven, being celebrated, being embraced by our Father. We not only didn’t deserve this grace, we had acted in ways that completely disqualified us from it. Therefore retelling the parables of Jesus is a rich way of sharing with people about Jesus’ faithful relationship with God, his vision for life, his ethics, and his way of discovering the full meaning of our lives (John 17:3).

In summary, the Bible tells us:
• That in Jesus God has said yes to us long before we even gave him a thought!

• Jesus died that we may experience life with the God who is always there, always forgiving, always present, always faithful, and nothing can separate us from God’s love.

• Our response doesn’t add to our salvation, it confesses it! Faith is a gift.

• Therefore to experience God’s transforming love, we don’t invite God into our lives, rather God invites us into his shared life.

So, go share the faith!

Dean Eaton is the LCA’s Church Planting Mentor and Mission Facilitator. His most recent publications are SENT Seeking the Orphans of God and Lighthouses Christian Coaching in a Post-Christian World, which are available at www.lca.org.au/sent

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Passing on faith across generations

Some people don’t feel well-equipped to pass on their faith to their children or grandchildren. If faith conversations aren’t natural in your house, you may be unsure where to start. Thankfully, the team from the LCA’s Grow Ministries has advice and resources to help.

Starting faith conversations with young people can be uncomfortable, especially with high school-aged children. This can even be the case with members of your own family. Firstly, always know that you can rely on the Holy Spirit to guide you. He will help you.

BE BOLD
Be confident in what you believe. Know whose you are and that God will always be with you. Ask God what it is he wants you to say.

WHAT YOU KNOW IS ENOUGH
One of the biggest fears when sharing our faith is that we don’t know enough. You don’t have to be a theologian to share your faith. After all, Peter and John had no formal education or training in Scripture (Acts 4:13). However, it is important for parents and grandparents to nurture their own relationship with God, by spending time reading the Bible and in prayer. You will be pleasantly surprised how God uses what you have been reading to interact with your children or grandchildren.

SHARE YOUR STORY
Share how God has worked in your life. You never know how your words may encourage and influence them.

As well as feeling unqualified, we may think we are too busy to put time into sharing our faith with young people in our lives. Consider using time in the car, mealtimes, holidays and organised one-on-one time with your child or grandchild to talk about faith.

For more information about Grow Ministries or for more resources for nurturing faith in the home, please call 08 8267 7300 or visit the Grow website.

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He’s being your mum

by Deborah Robertson

I can’t remember exactly where I was recently when I realised ‘that’ feeling had gone. ‘That’ feeling of profound sorrow would overwhelm me, especially when I was having a wonderful time with my son. I think we were at the kitchen table.

At the same kitchen table about eight years earlier I realised I couldn’t take it anymore. It was breakfast and my son was enjoying his cereal when I looked at him and was overwhelmed with ‘that’ feeling.

I couldn’t help thinking, ‘You are such an amazing boy! Where is your brother? Where is your sister?’ I must have gotten up to do something when I broke a cup. The sound of it smashing was nerve-shattering. Then I knocked my knee on the chair, which really hurt. Somehow I stifled a scream, then drove my son to school. I got home and broke down at that same kitchen table.

Working as a model and an actor, I had been used to maintaining an image. But for about a year I couldn’t stop eating and I stopped caring about keeping up appearances. I wanted to get going again and used to scold myself, ‘Just get up, stop stuffing your face, do some sit-ups and go and earn some money again!’ But scolding didn’t work. I’d had miscarriages and trying to get on with life wasn’t working.

The first one was very difficult but I thought I could handle it. The second one … oh the second one! I was filled with fear. I lay on the bed with my partner and went stone cold. I believed it meant I was never going to be able to have another baby. My partner couldn’t comfort me. Nothing could comfort me. I was inconsolable.

Not long after the miscarriage we split up. Years went by. The pain affected every part of my life. I decided I was going to give myself some space to properly grieve. My son and I moved to a less expensive home and that inner vow must have triggered a meltdown of my carefully constructed mask. I started writing down the song I thought no-one would hear. The chorus goes like this, ‘I can’t say one good thing, and I pray ‘cos I can’t think, that the Lord above has you in his arms, he’s holding you close and he’s being your mum’.

Amid all of this, I had become a born-again Christian. Everyone I went to church with seemed so ‘happy, shiny’. I wanted to be ‘happy, shiny’, but something inside told me I needed to start telling it exactly like it was. If I didn’t begin with honesty, I wouldn’t stand a chance. I started writing. ‘Broke a china cup this morning, knocked my knee upon a chair, I looked across the table at your face that wasn’t there.’ That was accurate. ‘I can’t keep on hiding all the tears I should be crying, all the loneliness inside me and the way I still care.’ That was the truth.

I turned to food a lot while I was working through the grief, but there were also times I’d write more songs. I have an arts background so I thought I might write a musical. I didn’t have any keyboard skills, so I rang the local university to ask about lessons. The woman who took my call, Yanina, happened to be the worship leader of her church. I booked a lesson. Yanina is a beautiful, compassionate woman and I really enjoyed sharing my songs with her and learning some chords.

Over the next couple of years we’d get together for lessons. When I said I’d like to do an album, she gave up her lunch hours and I’d run my songs by her. The tune of ‘He’s Being Your Mum’ came back to me. I told her I had a song about a miscarriage I’d had, but that I didn’t know if it was any good. She insisted I sing it to her. By the end of it we were crying our eyes out. It was amazing. It was so healing to cry with this beautiful woman of God.

Yanina said that she wanted me to write a positive ending to the song. This is what came: ‘I can’t say one good thing. But I’ll pray and I will sing because the Lord above has you in his arms. He’s holding you close and he’s being your mum.’

Somehow that last chorus changed the whole song. Somehow it has changed my whole life. There was hope. I had had a revelation. That my babies really are with Jesus. That one day my son and I will meet the rest of our family. This was a tremendous comfort to me. My pain was halved. I could finally, albeit slowly, get on with my life again.

Deborah Robertson is a Christian singer/songwriter from Melbourne and regularly attends St Matthew’s Lutheran Church Footscray. ‘He’s Being Your Mum’ is from the EP ‘All Praise to You Lord’. Copies are available at www.deborahrobertsonmusic.com
Deborah will be performing alongside Viki Mealings at ‘Live at the Chapel’ in Bendigo Victoria on 5 August and in Sunbury on 26 August (See www.facebook.com/liveatthechapelbendigo and www.facebook.com/liveatthechapelsunbury). If you would like information on having Deborah sing and/or share her testimony at your church or event, please email her at deborah@deborahrobertsonmusic.com

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Is science replacing God?

by Mark Worthing

There is an increasing remoteness between the biblical world and our own modern world.

When my grandfather was born in 1899 there were no automobiles, airplanes, telephones, radios, cinema, televisions or computers. No world wars had been fought; no tanks, poison gas or nuclear weapons had been developed. And no-one had even heard of global warming.

By the time of his death in 1993 he had sold his father’s plough horses for tractors, hooked up the farm to electricity, put the carriages in the barn loft to be replaced by a succession of automobiles, repaired bi-planes in World War I, purchased the first radio, telephone and later television in the district and, on a warm summer day in July 1969, sat down with his grandson in his farmhouse to watch a black and white feed of Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon. I can still hear his words: ‘Sit still and watch this, Mark. You’ll want to tell your grandchildren someday that you saw this’.

In a relatively short space of time we have emerged from a largely rural and agrarian society with simple technologies, into an age of computers, virtual reality video games, international jet flight and modern medical care – all made possible by myriad scientific and technological advances.

And the science that has changed our world has itself undergone significant change. Up until the beginning of the 20th century science held firmly to the concept of a static and eternal universe – without beginning or end. Within this context, talk about creation and end of time seemed quite nonsensical.

Einstein’s theory of relativity, developed between 1905 and 1915, and Edwin Hubble’s discovery of the expansion of the universe in 1929, through the observation of the red shift in the light of distant galaxies, turned scientific ideas about the universe on their head. And this was on top of the continuing debate about Darwin’s theory of evolution and the new ways this opened up for looking at life on our planet, including human beings. The discovery of the double helix structure of DNA and the mapping of the human genome also opened up entire new worlds of understanding into what makes us who we are.

For many, science has replaced religion as the go-to source for answers to life’s big questions. This has inevitably led to tension between science and faith.

Some scientists believe that faith, particularly Christian faith, has opposed science and represents a superstitious reliance on archaic beliefs that do not stand up to scrutiny. Some Christians believe science is at heart anti-faith and leaves no room for God.

Modern people are not well served by either of these views. The reality is that many key early scientists were people of strong personal faith, such as Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday and Lord Kelvin. Also, many contemporary scientists are devout Christians. Graeme Clark, who invented the bionic ear, is one of Australia’s most famous scientists. But he is also a person of very strong Christian faith who credits prayer as much as his groundbreaking research for his success.

So are science and faith adversaries or friends? Dialogue between science and faith has become easier with more identifiable contact points since the rise of Big Bang cosmology. But it would be wrong to assume that there are not still a number of difficult and perplexing problems. In wrestling with these problems, both science and faith can benefit.

Science is challenged not to reduce all things to the level of the physical, and to be open to the idea of purpose. If science fails to recognise the metaphysical and theological implications of its findings and to find room for purpose in the universe, then it runs the risk of impersonal reductionism. And people of faith, particularly Christians, are challenged to take seriously our own confession of God as creator. As Christians we have learned that if we really believe what we confess, namely that God is creator of heaven and earth, then we must listen carefully to those who study the physical universe that God has created and will redeem.

As the Psalmist confessed, ‘Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them’ (Psalm 111:2). If we fail to speak about such things as creation, the end of the world and even human beings in light of what science can tell us about the physical world around us, then we run the risk of becoming irrelevant.

The task of the Christian church within this context is to help people within our faith communities and beyond, both those who are scientifically informed and those who are less informed, to come to terms with the ongoing dialogue between the natural sciences and Christian faith.

Science and technology form one of the dominant background settings in most Australians’ lives (right after sport!). It is an area we cannot ignore in our sermons, our youth groups, our Bible studies, even our Sunday schools. If people walk into our churches and feel that they have stepped back into the intellectual context and world view of a previous century, we reinforce an unfortunate and erroneous perception that Christianity is quaint, useful for Christmas and Easter celebrations, mostly harmless, but otherwise irrelevant for our daily lives in the modern world.

Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. The God who took on human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ has affirmed and dignified the physical world. God not only created the physical world, but became a part of it so that he might redeem it. ‘For in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible … And through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or in heaven’ (Colossians 1:16,19). As Christians we want to understand the physical world in which we live because God created it, because God dignified it by becoming a part of it in Jesus Christ, and because God redeems it.

We need congregations today in which the gospel is effectively proclaimed within the context of the modern scientific and technological world. We need congregations in which Christians can live integrated lives and in which there is recognition and support, both of their faith and their knowledge, of their worship and their work, of their lives on Sunday and their lives the rest of the week. Such congregations will have made peace with the modern scientific world, and will have done so with integrity.

This does not mean we must accept uncritically everything that science or some individual scientist says. It does not mean adopting a physical reductionist view of reality. And it does not mean going quiet about what we believe about God and salvation, so as not to offend people.

It does mean, however, that we cannot assume that science is the enemy of faith and something of which we need to be suspicious. After all, we have no reason to fear the knowledge of the world that God created.

Mark Worthing is pastor at Immanuel Lutheran Church, North Adelaide. He is author of God, Creation and Contemporary Physics; Graeme Clark. The Man Who Invented the Bionic Ear; and Martin Luther. A Wild Boar in the Lord’s Vineyard, and co-author of God and Science in Classroom and Pulpit. He has been invited to present this year’s Tony Morgan Lecture at the University of New South Wales on the topic ‘Unlikely Allies: Monotheism and the Rise of Natural Science’.

Photo credit: NASA

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