The Universe Next Door by James Sire is a great book about how people who look like us, work with us, eat what we eat and watch what we watch, have an understanding of the world a universe away from the Christian one.  Well, Damon and I experienced if not exactly the universe next door, then the universe two doors down in Midland a few weeks back.

The block of units was next on our door-to-door list and it was new.  The yards were swept and tidy.  The neighbours seemed to know each other.  The first door we went to was opened by Jason, a big bloke, couple of earrings, intelligent and chatty, about 35 with a Jewish background.  His parents were non-observant Jews, but his still-alive 100 year old grandmother -an observant Jew – now lived in Perth.

“I bet she had an interesting 20th century,” I observed.

“She did.  Straight from a concentration camp,” he replied.

That started a 30 minute conversation about evil, how God feels about it, what he can do about it, if anything, and where Jesus and his resurrection fits into all of that.   Jason’s big issue of course, was the Hitlers of this world, and why they get away with it.  The good news, we told him, was that he didn’t, that Jesus will judge him.  The bad news?  Jesus is coming down your street too! We left Jason with a promise to come back and see him when we start up something in Midland.  He would come, he said.

All well and good!  We knocked on the door next to his, but they were out.  Two doors down, though, was in.  55 year old Brenda, all blonde, smiling and slightly sassy.  Through the security mesh there were exotic looking throw-rugs and vibrant lamp shades. Figurines from a cheap and cheerful New Age shop littered the table.  The sunlight through the back door revealed the washing on the line;  all bright and blowing in the breeze and, yes, slightly sassy too.  She was up for a talk. Brenda perched herself against the door frame on one leg like a, well like a sassy school girl outside the corner deli watching the boys!

We told her our schtick, went through the survey.  She agreed that Jesus was the Son of God.

“But not the unique Son of God?” we asked.

“No, Jesus is no different to us, she said, “We’re all divine children of God.”

Brenda is a “white healer”.  We all choose our pathways before we are born, we’re here on earth to raise the level of mass consciousness.  But she’s really bugged by the rising level of “have nots” in a a society ruled by the “haves.”  And funny enough, she got onto the topic of Hitler.

“Hitler’s in heaven,” she declared, “He did wrong, but his method raised our awareness of the power of mass consciousness.”

“You might want to go two doors down and talk to Jason,” I almost said, but didn’t.

Jason and Brenda were both worried by evil, both kept us behind locked screen doors, both slightly lonely and slightly frightened, both interested in a church in Midland where they could talk about this sort of stuff.  Yet how vastly different their world views! And how internally inconsistent!  Jason and Brenda are a contradiction of viewpoints, half-opinions and backtracks. They are great neighbours, both great to talk to, open and friendly. Yet where would a spiritual conversation between them about the nature of good and evil end up apart from verbal blows?  The gospel message has a coherence and internal integrity about it that, because it IS true, has a deep and satisfying consistency too.  Damon and I walked back to the train praying and rejoicing that we had been given the chance to offer living water to those who are thirsting for something they don’t even know about yet.

It reminded me of two things: One, there is only one universe, and it was made by and for King Jesus.   And second, there are thousands of Jasons and Brendas in Perth, willing to talk, willing for someone to listen, and yes, even willing to find out more about this universe maker who banishes all fears, judges all evil and can more than satisfy all of our deepest desires.

To say “our God is unique” is a statement which riles against contemporary sentiment. For Christians the exclusivity of its faith claims is particularly pungent to a pluralistic society. Culture would like to take God off of his lofty throne and place him on a shelf in an aisle of the religious supermarket. Yet as Christians we declare of our God, “There is no one like him”. In fact the Bible is full of such statements exalting our God above all other ‘gods’, above all other beings, above anything and everyone else – “No one is like you, O LORD; you are great, and your name is mighty in power. Who should not revere you, O King of the nations? This is your due” (Jeremiah 10:6-7a).

As I’ve grown as a Christian, it has become more and more clear to me that God is a being of whom there is no equal; he’s the only being of which there is only one. There is no one else like him. While we are made in the image of this unique God, he is very different from us. He is what the Bible calls, holy. He is distinct, other, unique.

When the prophet Isaiah receives a vision of heaven, he sees the LORD seated on a throne, high and exalted, with his robe literally filling the temple. He is huge, high, above everything else – even in heaven he is higher than all other beings. In fact the beings which are in heaven are worshipping him. Two seraphs, whose voices are so loud that the doorposts and thresholds of the temple shake when they speak, call out to one another,

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
the whole earth is filled with his glory” (Isaiah 6:3).

The seraphs get it, but sometimes we are a little slow. Our Greek thinking minds want to package God into a nice little box so we can understand him. But if he is holy and unique, then there are things about God which we will simply not be able to comprehend. Take for example the Trinity. How can God be One, and Three? It riles against rationality. I suppose if trinities were a common occurrence, we would get it. But he is the only Trinity – there’s only one. Any metaphor used to try and explain the Trinity is almost useless. The revelation of God as Triune is not meant to confuse us, it’s meant to lead us to our knees in worship, awe, adoration, reverence and praise of this being who is like no other.

The cross is a demonstration of the uniqueness and holiness of God in action. He is not only unique and holy in his justice, righteousness and hatred of sin, but also in his love, mercy, grace and kindness to us – his rebellious creatures. The apostle Paul touches on this in Romans 5 when he says, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (vv. 6-8).

As we hold out the gospel, let us cling to the truth that our God is unique, that he is holy, and that there is no one else like him. He is not one God among many; he is the only God. Let us tell the world boldly about this God, revealed in Jesus. “Who among the ‘gods’ is like you, O LORD? Who is like you – majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?” (Exodus 15:11)

Video – Evangelism as Praise

After knocking on several houses with no answer, someone finally opens the door. “Hi, we’re doing a quick survey of people in the area to find out what people think about spiritual things…”, I asked.

“Ah, yeah ok, I’ll do it”, replied the man in his late 50s.

And so the questions begin. A minute or two later the man has completed the survey (for the record he wasn’t sure what he believed about God, believed that Jesus was just a good man, and that when we die we cease to exist). The man appears unhurried so I ask him if he’d had any church background. He replies in the affirmative: he went to an Anglican school. He then begins to tell me why he doesn’t like religion, how it leads to wars, and the danger of fanaticism. I listen and try and draw him out further, engaging him on what he believes. He then asks, “What do you believe?”

That’s generally how a lot of the conversations I have on the street go. If you are polite, people are generally polite in return, even if they are not interested in doing the survey. Only a very few become visibly annoyed or even angry that you would dare invade their time and space and ask them a question about spiritual things!

I find a lot of Christians’ perceptions about ‘street evangelism’, ‘walk up’, ‘outreach’ – or whatever you want to call it -, are markedly different to the reality on the ground. It is true that there is a confrontational element to walking up to a stranger’s door, but I’ve found that using a survey approach is a lot less confrontational – both for you, and the person you’re trying to engage. And engage is the key word here. What we are trying to do is engage someone in a conversation about the things that matter, about life and death, about God and eternity and what Jesus has done for them. It is one thing to drop off a pamphlet; it is quite another to engage a fellow human being who has ideas, hurts, fears, desires and often illusions about who Jesus is and what he really said.

We go out as ambassadors of Christ and his church. We go out knowing what it is to “fear the Lord”, and so we try to “persuade men” (2 Corinthians 5:11). We implore people on “Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God” (5:20). And yet we do this with “gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15). It’s amazing how many people are thankful that you’d even asked  them about what they believe.

It is true that a lot of people aren’t interested or won’t talk. To them, Christ is a “stumbling block” and “foolishness” (1 Cor. 1:23), and we are like the “smell of death” to them (2 Cor. 2:16). But “to those whom God has called…Christ [is] the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1:24), and thus we are like the “fragrance of life” (2 Cor. 2:16). And ultimately, it is for those whom God is calling that we push through rejection, so “that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory” (2 Tim. 2:10b).

If you’re wondering what it is really like to engage strangers in conversations about Jesus, then I’d encourage you to give it a try! And you’re most welcome to come out and join me.

Ok, the last post was a rant, and a self-righteous one at that.  But FB, you made me do it and sometimes I get so mad, I just, I just, oh, I don’t know!  Anyway, now that that is out of my system let’s look at what I do like about FB in the cold clear light of day. Here are the five reasons why FB could still be my friend.

1. A Window On Who We Are

Winston Churchill said “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.”  The same has been said about technology, and on the surface that rings true.  The technologies of the information age have drastically altered how we do life, and to a large extent drive us in directions that we are unsure we want to go.   Having said that, it is probably just as true that such technologies simply reveal more clearly and – in the obvious case of Twitter – more immediately, how we are shaped already. We are exposed for who we are by immediacy. When time, distance, effort and reflection are removed from the communications exchange we are left dangling over the chasm of self exposure with less safety gear than ever.  Churchill’s adage is a reminder that, despite our best attempts to control the image we present of ourselves, we are not completely in control of that. If the Television Age gave us permission to bring other peoples’ lives into our lounge room, then the Information Age has given us permission to bring our lives into other peoples’ lounge rooms with a candour and flagrancy that would have horrified our grandparents.  All of this means that over time FB can make us better observers of people and better observers of ourselves.  Christians interested in understanding the public square will find that FB does a pretty good job of showing us what people are like.

2. Connectivity

The hunger for connection with other people is revealed in how enthralled with are with FB.  It has tapped into a God-given desire in humans to connect with other humans.  For me, the most rewarding aspect was the ability to reconnect with good long-term friends overseas who I had grown up with, written to and visited when I could.  Suddenly I didn’t have to cram my relationship with them into a couple of weeks. Instead it could be strung out over time, and normalised through sharing the nuts and bolts of everyday life.  Sharing photos and experiences on an ongoing basis with such people has been rich and fun.

3. Life IS Good!

Kids’ birthday parties, wedding celebrations, family reunions, a house just built.  Seeing photos and reading experiences about the good gifts we have – and others have – is a reminder of how generous God is to us. So we airbrush life a little, but imagine a world with all the bad removed and more full of colour than you can imagine – now that would be nice!  In the meantime while FB can lure us into the temptation to be envious of the experiences and achievements of others, it also allows us to rejoice with those who rejoice – and to weep with those who weep.  Take the opportunity to bring some of your petty resentments before God about the FB successes of other peoples’ lives, and allow him to be your contentment.

4. Gospel Conversations

I have had several good gospel conversations with non-Christian friends that began as public comments and ended with some chat privately.  At least one of those has followed me up to ask questions.  The most difficult thing to keep healthy and in good shape when disagreeing with someone on FB is “tone” – how you come across, but conversely it can be the most important.  1Peter 3 reminds us to share our hope with “gentleness and respect”.  FB is a good barometer on how intolerant our supposedly tolerant society has become.  A friend commented that when she queried the perspective of a FB friend – who was a long term school friend also – on a certain issue, the torrent of abuse from a sector of people supposedly known for their tolerance was disturbing.  FB is part of the public square and we have the opportunity to disagree with people in a loving way that does not descend to abuse. Let’s be known as the non-abusers on FB and give a clear picture to the rest of the world how God’s Spirit is working self-control and kindness into our lives.

5. FUN!

Okay, so FB is fun – and there’s nothing wrong with that!  Another friend recently told me that, with three kids under four, it makes a dreary day with flu-ridden kids and rain just that bit brighter, especially when she realises that other people feel, and share, her pain.  Perhaps the fun of FB is drained away when it becomes all-consuming.  Like any hobby or addiction that becomes all-controlling, and starts to distract us away from other less frivolous pursuits, FB is a great servant, but a fairly toxic master.  We often forget that less than 10 years ago it didn’t exist, and suddenly it is a hugely wealthy company with a massive uptake and it’s had a film made about it, screenplay by Alan Sorkin no less! We’re like kids in a lolly shop gorging ourselves sick. But when we’ve had our fill of lollies we’ll find our way back to a more nutritious way to network socially, or at least we’ll control our binges.

Now, where did I put that password again?

It’s been 7 hours and 15 days

Since you took your “like” away

I chill out every night

And work all day

Since you took your “like” away

It’s been 131 days actually – December 23rd – but hey, who’s counting?  Facebook and I are no longer friends , we don’t even like each other.  Well, that’s not strictly true, but my post-FB life  has not only not spiralled into a friendless abyss,  it feels, dare I say it,  mundane and normal, just like BFB (figure it out – Ed). And bonus! I have discovered the self-righteous zealotry of the convert.  I am the reformed fifty-a-day man bounding past the hackers outside the building and heading straight for the stairwell; I am the FFP (Formerly Fat Person – Ed) parading my Bozo pants before slothful friends, my trim figure slumping just a little as they reach for a second slice.   In short, I am incredibly annoying.  You would wish me on Facebook one more time just so you could “unfriend” me (do they still use that silly nonword or have they moved on? – supercilious Ed).

But before you dismiss me the old fashioned way by ignoring my emails, texts or heaven forbid, my AOL Instant Messenger, I want you to know it hasn’t all been plain sailing.  There were times when, because of its, its…, what the heck, IT’S AMAZING AWESOMENESS!!!, I was tempted to reactivate my Facebook account.  Fortunately a pre-recorded Skype message from my virtual sponsor pulled me back from the brink. To that end in this post and the next I will present a more sober assessment of my Facebook experience. For now, here are five of my dislikes, in no particular order.

1. Time-Sucker: How many times have I logged off FB with the same queasy guilt associated with three consecutive AFL rounds on Foxtel, two packets of Smiths’ Atomic Tomato and a 1.5 litre bottle of Coke, all consumed on a Saturday afternoon so balmy the surge growth of my back lawn is sending shockwaves through my abdomen?   Psalm 90 calls on God to “teach us to number our days that we might get a heart of wisdom.”  Now that I am well past the half-way point of my days I am feeling the urgency of waste.  Perhaps you are more disciplined than I. If so, congratulations, you are a statistical aberration.

2. Friend-Porn: Facebook is the new centre-fold; airbrushed images of lives better than what you can get your actual hands on. We are insecure enough as it is, surrounded as we are with images of happy, successful people who we don’t know, sharing experiences that we envy. How much more so when people we DO know are sharing those experiences.  What are we missing out on? Why didn’t we get invited? They looks so happy in those photos!  If the circus is all about the roar of the crowd and the smell of the grease-paint, there is something distinctly odourless and silent about the FB BigTop, something flat that, over time, and like porn, lulls you into thinking this IS the reality of peoples’ lives – other peoples’ lives.

3. The Oprah Couch: When Tom Cruise jumped up and down on that sofa declaring his undying love for Katie Holmes he was simply paying homage to the cult of self-disclosure so cleverly, and successfully spruiked by Oprah.  Ironically, the flip side of an airbrushed life is a life so over-exposed, so breathlessly self-disclosed, you are unsure whether or not you are seeing the real person.  Given the option of saying nothing or saying something inane, inane breasts the tape at a rate that would have the World Anti-Doping Authority outside your house with a plastic cup at 5:00 AM. FB’s immediacy, and perceived privacy safety net (strange, but true – Ed), results in the sublime and ridiculous being blended into an obnoxious, rather smelly grey paste called connectivity.

4. The Downside of Anger: I have made statements to people on FB that I regret. Worse still, others have silently been following the flow of the conversation.  Distance mixed with immediacy makes a heady – and dangerous – cocktail.  To paraphase James 1:26 “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his keyboard but deceives his heart, that person’s religion is worthless.” I have a reputation for being a little quick off the mark to make a comment or offer a humorous put-down.  Exchange my tongue for a keyboard, and a real, live person for a picture on FB and I am more lethal than Quick Draw McGraw.   Of course we can always delete our comments, but we have to wonder if Jesus also had virtual words in mind when, in Matthew 12, he states that we will be accountable to God for every idle word we speak.

5. I Want to Be Alone: When it comes to spiritual disciplines, it’s not at the top of the list for evangelicals, not even close, but solitude has something deeply reflective and refreshing about it.  We simply don’t spend enough time alone.  Alone is different to lonely.  FB is a space-filler, removing the little cracks of solitude in my already busy and bitsy modern suburban life.  But here is my discovery: I am finding that I am spending more time in prayer alone since my FB fast, but it has never felt lonely! If my true connectivity with other believers is in our joint union with Christ then it stands to reason that as I pray in the Spirit for them my connection with them, and my love and concern for them, will grow much deeper. And sure enough, my list of people to pray for has grown much longer post-FB, as I have found time to ruminate on their lives in solitude. I have phoned more people to check how they are, or popped-in to see how they are, rather than a quick check of their status.  Solitude is actually strengthening my relationships, not weakening them.

Next time: Why I like, like ya know, kinda like FB.

Take Shelter is a disturbing psychological thriller that taps into the growing unease of the modern world that something just might be wrong, that something menacing and dangerous is looming on the horizon, always just out of sight.  This 2010 multiple award winning movie by Jeff Nichols is a modern day Noah story replete with messages of foreboding doom, disbelieving locals and the requisite shelter in the back yard. But if you think you’ve seen it all before in  Steve Carrell’s Evan Almighty, there isn’t a flowing robe, beard, or Afro-American God-figure in sight. And no cute and fluffy animals in pairs either,  just one rather forlorn dog who just may be the next slavering Cujo.

Curtis, brilliantly and darkly played by Michael Shannon, has been having dreams, disturbing dreams. Storm clouds gather and drop oily brown rain. Twisters meet the ground and rush towards him. Flocks of birds circle and drop from the sky. Shadowy figures threaten his family. They are portents, but of what?  As the dreams intensify Curtis finds himself waking in a sweat, or with blood on the pillow from chewing his mouth in anguish, or most humiliating of all – a wet bed. His effort to hide this last embarrassment from his wife highlights his increasingly futile efforts to mask his emotional and mental disintegration.

Worse still, these dreams start creeping into his waking life. His arm aches all day after his dog savages him in one particular nightmare. Curtis’s once happy mid-West existence, his marriage to Sam (Jessica Chastain), his job as site manager for a mining company, even his relationship with his young, profoundly deaf daughter, all take a battering from the relentless build up in his head.  Or is it in his head?  Psychiatric help, medication and counselling about the impact on his life of his schizophrenic mother fail to get to the source of his angst.

And still the dreams keep coming. Sam realises something is terribly wrong when, in the midst of a tough US economy Curtis extends their home loan to reinforce their underground storm shelter.  Stocking it with food, gas masks, water and a toilet, Curtis is expecting something far worse than the straight forward tornadoes that famously shoot through these mid-Western small towns, devastating all in their path. Along the way he makes decisions that threaten not only his relationships, but his livelihood, and with it the chances of his daughter receiving an expensive cochlear implant to restore her hearing.  Sam can see her life and the love of her life crumbling before  her. She starts to believe that maybe she too needs to take shelter – from Curtis.

This is a movie that keeps you on the edge, not so much of your seat, but of your mind. There’s nothing fantastical or horror movie about Take Shelter, which makes it all the more disturbing. It’s as if you, along with Curtis, can see what is coming, but you’re not quite sure you believe it. You want him to be right because you want him to be sane.  But there is the paradox. Sane and the whole world falls apart, insane and Curtis’s world falls apart – and he’s too good a man, too quietly solid and real, too much like we are, for us to want that to happen.

Nichols has done a great job setting the scene; the washed-out colours, the blowing winds; the sky, blue and innocent suddenly filling with menacing cloud. The pace is all small-town America. There is church, there is hardware, there is friendship, there is work and drinking. But there is a bigger picture too. Is Curtis’s oily rain dream a message about environmental disaster?  And the global financial crisis raises its head. Small towns like this, families like Curtis’s, teeter on the edge of financial ruin. One false step will see you hurtle off the edge and Curtis seems to be false stepping his way to oblivion.  As his friend and bank manager advises him when he goes in for a home loan extension to build his shelter, “Banks don’t lend money like they used to…, I’m telling you Curtis, this is a risky loan you’re taking.”   But for Curtis and his dreadful dreams the only risk is ignoring his fear that something bad is coming.  Shannon’s driving and intense performance sweeps us relentlessly towards what we hope is Curtis’s sanity and his salvation, which only makes the final scene all the more compelling.

I came away from this movie sobered by its message of an approaching day of reckoning. The Christian parallels are obvious.  Just as it was in the days of Noah and of Curtis, so too it will be in the coming of the Son of Man. Life as normal, then disaster!  It was a reminder too that, despite the best efforts of modern psychiatry and medication, despite the promises of the market economy, despite modern science’s breezy optimism, something is wrong that none of these things can fix.  Most of all it is a reminder of Paul’s comment to the Areopagus in Athens, where he says “God has fixed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed” (Acts 17:31). Some sneered, some listened, a few believed.  Paul was calling on the Athenians to take shelter, shelter from something far more terrible than anything Curtis could dream up. Paul, like Curtis, discharged his duty of proclamation, and, like Curtis, it cost him greatly to do so.  Like Paul and like Curtis we are called to discharge this same duty, for, despite the mockery of this world, despite the concern of family and friends who do not believe, a storm is coming that will sweep away all in its path who are not taking shelter in Jesus.

It’s taken a while, but cities are now getting some good press after some bad PR over the past twenty years or so. Back then it was all Sea-change and Tree-Change, but when the retiring baby boomers realised that they couldn’t get a decent latte in the sleepy hamlet of Keepyerchinup, never mind a decent chiropractor, the city started to look good again, especially that funky little pad with two bedrooms and four bathrooms.

The simple fact is that humans flourish in cities. Culture spreads from cities and well appointed cities provide a level of support and services that cannot be sustained financially in more lightly populated centres. This recent article on cities in The European Magazine paints the future as rosy for cities, mainland European ones at least, which is just as well since more than 50 per cent of the world’s population live in cities.

Not that cities don’t have problems, indeed popular culture has highlighted this for decades.  Batman isn’t fighting crime in the countryside, Spiderman isn’t spinning webs to catch crims in leafy ramparts, Superman isn’t working on the Nowheresville (pop: 500) Gazette.   As the poster at the top from Fritz Lang’s 1927 classic Metropolis indicates, cities have all too often been dehumanising and dangerous. Things flourish there alright, things like evil, vice and crime.  The HBO series The Wire comprises sixty episodes with hundreds of actors, but there is only one star of the show: the seething cauldron of vice, greed, decay and drugs aka Baltimore City.   When cities go bad they go horrid.

In a recent blog post we highlighted Providence’s current essay writing project which aims to define the nature of Perth as a city, and provide answers to questions such as: What does it mean to live here? How does our city affect us? How do we affect our city?  As God’s people living in community we are both participants and prophets in our city. We live in it, but we speak to it as well.  It is a dual role.  On occasions it feels like the city simply sweeps us up and we run at its pace, waiting to be spat out at the end of a week for some time out.  On other occasions it feels like we are really making a difference: two young women are baptised on the shores of the river in sight of the high rises, announcing that Jesus is Lord, not commerce or pleasure or real-estate; a lady in distress receives help from a missional community who clear out her over-cluttered house; city workers pray together in a cafe early one morning before heading off to help the city flourish.  Whatever we feel about our city, this much we know: God loves our city and has a heart for its people (and as Jonah 4 reminds us, he kinda likes the animals and other stuff in our city too).

As the city starts to gear up again after Christmas, as the arterial roads fill up with stop-start traffic again, as the trains get fuller quicker, as the work deadlines hurtle towards you, as the kids start buying new school stuff, new music books, new gym equipment, it is easy to feel crushed by the seething city.  Let’s encourage each other to live life with a love for this city that calms our hearts, whilst living in such a way that those around us realise that we are citizens of another city – one not built with human hands, one that will usher in an eternal era of human flourishing and transform the Baltimores, the Mumbais, the Londons and yes, the Perths, into the kinds of places that God intended them to be.

A short mental exercise: As Paris is to romance, as Rome is to architecture, as Milan is to fashion, as New York is to finance, so Perth is to….?

Just what is Perth known for?  What are we defined by?

This is Perth is a humorous and award winning video that gives a shot at an answer. In doing so it taps into our fear that we’re probably not as fantastic as we claim to be. In fact we might even be, perish the thought, a trifle boring. Of course this doesn’t deter the narrator from proclaiming Perth “the greatest city in the world”.

At Providence we have been exploring what Perth is known for. Our reasons are more important than determining whether we have enough nightlife or why the shops shut so early.  We want to understand our city better so that we can reach it for King Jesus. We love our city not because it’s the greatest city in the world, but because Jesus loves it.  One day he is coming to rule and reign over all the earth and we want as many as possible of our fellow citizens to long for that day – a day when Perth will be a city beyond our wildest dreams.

To that end we have come up with a framework for understanding Perth and the combination of characteristics that is unique to it. We intend to use this framework to help us to better serve our city with the gospel.  Our city’s history and location, combined with the recent economic boom in WA and the rise of globalisation, has made us a city of polarities. These polarities, though not exhaustive, are definitive.  Attached to each set of polarities is an accompanying question that opens up apologetic, evangelistic and discipleship possibilities for Providence Church. See what you think:

1. Resourced/Under-Resourced: Don’t You Want to Make a Difference?

We have so much and we have avoided the deepest troughs of the global recession. Still, there are many in our city who have fallen through the cracks as prices rise and community breaks down.  How can we use what God has given us to make a difference?

2. Isolated/Global: Don’t You Want to Raise Your Sights?

Perth takes a perverse pride in its isolation. Life on the edge of a big island has sheltered us from the worst (and best) on the planet. But Perth has grown selfish. The global economy and information technology is bringing the world to us and the resentments are simmering. We are groaning along with our overstretched infrastructure. But there is a world beyond our shores that God loves and we need to look beyond how that world affects us to how we can affect our world.

3. Expat/Local: Don’t You Want to Belong?

A significant and growing minority of Perth people are expats; here for the work and then moving on to the next job. There is a growing tension in Perth about the number of overseas workers in the city.  At the same time many locals are feeling disenfranchised, not sure if Perth belongs to them anymore. God’s community is a great leveler.  It is open to all who would come and our role is to invite expats and locals into a community that is qualitatively different to what the rest of Perth can offer.

4. Conservative/Hedonistic: Don’t You Want to be Fulfilled?

Perth is socially conservative: often accused, with some justification, of being behind the times.  We are suspicious of change.  This is offset by a hedonism fueled by good times, warm weather and a free water playground. Our conservatism does not extend to our behaviour; we are, at heart, pleasure-seeking and selfish. Despite all we have we still find time to complain.  The gospel that Providence pronounces offers a new way of life that will radically change us and provide lasting fulfillment.

So there you have it. Our attempt to give some parameters to our city.  It’s not exhaustive, but it is a good place to start. Over the coming months we are going to write more extensively on these issues and we’d love to have your input on what you think of Perth. It promises to be an enjoyable and enlightening project.

The 2009 film Invictus, directed by Clint Eastwood, is based on a book by John Carlin called Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation, which documented the events surrounding the 1995 Rugby World Cup, hosted in South Africa in the early years of Mandela’s presidency. Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon play the parts of Nelson Mandela and Springboks captain François Pienaar, respectively.