Youth Ministry and Me

I have always been interested in Hansie Cronje.  As younger boy growing up Hansie was a great nemesis of the Aussie cricket team.  But he was also a Christian.  This fact made it extra interesting when in the early part of this century (2000s) it was revealed Cronje had gotten himself mixed up in the bookmaker crowd and was given money by bookmakers to ensure them favourable results, amongst other things such as pitch information.  I remember then a few years after this hearing one morning that Hansie Cronje had died in a plane crash.  What a fascinating story.

So when I was in Koorong a while ago and saw, The Hansie Cronje Story I picked it up and read it with interest.  I think my first reflection would be that this book is not worth reading unless you know who Hansie is and are interested in just how he could fall so spectacularly from grace as he did.  My other main problem with the biography was it was occasionally preachy.  It would move from talking about Cronje and his faith into a little gospel presentation and then back into the story.  In fact the last chapter is almost entirely of this nature.   I've got no problem with preaching the Gospel, however the way this book did it seemed often awkward.  It was also obvious this book was written at the request of the family as Cronje's flaws were easily forgiven and his best features sung with much praise. I also feel a nervous even criticising the book at all because it's obvious as you read that the family and friends of Cronje don't take well to all the criticism that Cronje recieved - unjustified as much of it probably was.

In this book then you get the picture of Cronje being an intensely driven man.  Driven to succeed in whatever he did.  He made his first real commitment to becoming a follower of Jesus after he ran over and killed a child whilst driving on a freeway to an interstate cricket game.  It seems with the pressures of international cricket he waxed and waned in intensity of his faith and had some sort of crisis of faith after the bookmaking/match fixing scandal came out in public.  In the 2 and a bit years he lived after this scandal that bought him down from the heights of well loved cricket captain he got his relationship with his wife and his creator back on track.  In many ways he died at exactly the right moment.

And that's really what I take away from this book.  Our days are numbered and God knows when they will be up.  I don't think Hansie really could have lived a long happy life been baned from cricket (the game he loved) and still knowing he had let down his friends and family and country so badly by getting involved with the bookies.  But after the scandal broke God gave him enough time to make some restitution for his sins and to clear the slate.  It was at this moment he was taken home.  It was sad that he died, but in many ways a happy ending.  I pray that when my time is up, I too will have my house in order.

In Australia we have an awesome privilege where the Government financially supports the placement of chaplains into state schools.

This blessing has enabled our Youth Ministry access to students at the local high school that we would never have got.

Sadly however this funding is coming to an end and the current government is seeming unlikely to renew it.  This would be a pretty devastating blow!

However, there is still something that can be done.  If you live in Australia, please visit this website to voice your concern to your local MP in the run up to the election.

If you can't vote in the next Australian election, then please pray for a government that will be favourable to school chaplaincy and continue to financially support it.

http://schoolchaplaincy.org.au/

Tomorrow Ellisa and I will be beginning our Holidays which last for 3 weeks.

I'm probably not going to blog much in that time, and intend to unplug a fair bit.  Though I may tweet the occasional awesome picture that captures my holidaying moments.

On Sunday morning we're making the 10hr trip from Melbourne to Sydney.  In Sydney we're spending 4 nights at this AWESOME place which we got for a steal thanks to Wotif and with the help of a voucher we got for a wedding present.

After our 4 days in Melbourne we will meet up with my Dad who is flying up from Sydney and we will drive another 2hrs north to the Newcastle/Hunter Valley Region to visit my grandparents and extended family who I haven't seen for ages and many whom Ellisa hasn't met (Grandparents excluded as they came to our wedding!)

We'll head back to Melbourne on the Monday and have a few days in Melbourne before heading back home (for me) to Tasmania.  We're spending 6 days in Tassie and I can't wait.

After that we're back in Melbourne for the weekend and then back to work on the Monday.

I'm hoping to use the break as a chance to read lots, and think about my future.

So pray for our safe journeys and that we come back refreshed and relaxed ready for ministry here in Doncaster.

I posted a link to this article which gave some good reasons not to vote Green if you're a Christian on Facebook earlier today and got the following comments:

Person 1: I feel insulted with the label "naive Christian". Reading this article was like swimming in a sea of bias.

Person 2: Articles like this really dissapoint me... the Greens will be getting my vote.

My response:

Hey Person 1 and Person 2. First of all (to Person 1) if I didn't know you and was feeling like being a political bastard I could say that your comment might back up the article giving you that label, of naive. Now, don't get me wrong, that's not what I'm saying but you can't just dismiss what the article says because it's biased against your opinion.

Every article we read is biased in some way, we only notice the bias if it offends our own biases. So to both of you I would say, sure it's biased against the Greens, but lots of other articles are biased towards them. You can't just pick which ones you are going to deal with. What is wrong with what the article said?

Why does it disappoint you Person 2? Is it that the article talks about their philosophy/ideology and you're uncomfortable having that exposed? Or is it because thats not true? Is their no such book called, "The Greens"? Does it not say the things quoted and alluded to?

Don't think I'm some sort of right wing, 'moral majority' Christian voter. I'm not. I've voted Green in the past. But as I read and reflect and try and work out what it means to be a Christian in a democracy my feeling is it means I need base my votes not on single issues, but on ideologies. Now, no party has a perfect Christian ideology (not even the Christian ones!) But some are at least not opposed to Christians. And that is my problem. It might be all well and good to have more trees and to treat the 'boat people' (actually desperate refugees in need of our help) more humanly, but what good is letting them settle in Australia only to have the church and Christians then hindered to bring the Gospel to them by a party that has said it wants to bring a, " green philosophy as an alternative to the traditional Christian view: "an alternative tradition", a green ethic that is concerned for "the interests of individual non-human animals". This by its very nature would include a rejection of Christian morals etc.

No party is perfect, I agree. I have no idea who to vote for. But I don't think it should be the Greens. It's not a salvation issue, I don't think you love Jesus less if you vote for them. But I do think it is an unwise move, and surely I must be allowed to hold that opinion and express it. That's what democracy is all about!



Feel free to continue the debate here or on Facebook!