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Culture changes when a small group of people, often on the margins of society, find a better way to live and other people begin to copy them. (David Brooks, quoted in Everywhere You Look)

Sometimes you read a book that is written for the times we live in. It is prophetic in that it speaks what many already have a sense of, but the words written on the pages bring reality to the surface for all to see in broad daylight. This is what Tim Soerens’ newly released book Everywhere You Look does. It speaks the future that is already present. The question for us is: “Do we have ears to hear and eyes to see what God is doing?”

Soerens, who also co-wrote The New Parish: How Neighborhood churches are transforming Mission, Discipleship and Community with Paul Sparks, agrees that the church in the West might be dying, but does not see this a hopeless situation. Instead, he suggests that in the midst of death there is life as God does a new thing. As followers of this God we are not to hold fearfully to the past covered by a nostalgic mist that clouds our ability to discern the present. Instead, we must look to the moment now where God is already at work reshaping his church as he always has done in different seasons.

As Christ-followers embody the love of God in the neighbourhood, which Soerens sees as the primary unit for change, not only are disciples formed, but a new culture is created that reflects the values of the kingdom of God. Soerens says:

We are called to live out this good-news story not as isolated well meaning individuals, but as a team that is publicly encountered in the ordinary context of particular places. If the only place our neighbours can experience the body of Christ is during our worship services, we have failed. The only viable way we can invite people to experience the good news of the gospel is by displaying a real community of people in a real place-this is the ancient practice that God is calling forth in our new day.

The question that Soerens wants the church to ask is: “What is the purpose of the church?” In other words, why are we doing what we are doing? Once we absorb that we are here to participate with God’s work of reconciling and renewing the universe, we can practice being the church in the local space of the neighbourhood. Soerens believes that God is very concerned about the particular – he does work universally but the kingdom of God is revealed in a myriad of creative ways that are unique to every neighbourhood in our world. So more than ever we need to be paying attention to the Spirit and asking, “What is God up to in my neighbourhood?” As we do this, God-inspired projects and relationships will emerge. As we champion the strengths in our neighbourhood we can work together with the community to create a place that truly flourishes.

Soerens encourages us to engage in formational practices that will shape us for the task ahead, and to work in teams as well as to seek out others who are active in a neighbourhood in order to hear stories of the strengths and challenges in that particular place. Once we hear and learn from each other about what God is up to, it will inspire and encourage us about the new thing that God is doing and this will help others to also have hope about the way God is reshaping the church today. In all this Soerens maintains his focus on teams and working together despite our differences.

This book is an encouragement for all of us who have been plodding away quietly, experimenting on the margins of the church, attempting new things, failing, wondering if what we are doing is anything at all. Yet the whole time we have a sneaking suspicion that everywhere you look God is up to something new, that we are not alone and that the local space of the neighbourhood is where God is now slowly fermenting a new thing that is beautiful, just, kind and a reflection of his perfect love. The future is indeed already in the present. Can you see it?

You can order the book here.

Over the last couple of months my husband and I have been reading Ecclesiastes together. It’s been a comfort to read the sobering words of “The Teacher” in this book, especially during this season that our world is going through. There is a lot that has stood out for us but the classic words from chapter 3:1-8 resonate the most. The first verse says: “For everything there is a season. A time for every activity under heaven”. I like the Message version that says: “There’s an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on the earth”.

There is an “opportune time” to do things.

It’s made me think again that we are going through a very unique time in history and that we need ears to hear what God is saying to us. We need discernment and we need wisdom. The planet has been on pause and now as we slowly begin to open up again, we find that we are not the same as we once were before the pandemic. Things have changed. It’s most certainly not a time to solider on in the same ways that we have previously. It’s an opportune time maybe even a “kairos” moment, but for what? What are we meant to be becoming and doing at this time?

At Neighbourhood Matters, the little organisation that we run, we are consistently challenging the church to look outwards. We often say that “When we switch from asking ‘God what are you doing in my church?’ to ‘God what are you doing in my neighbourhood?’ radical things begin to happen”. A reorientation and a reframing occur when we start looking outside of ourselves. I believe this is also happening in the church today. There is a reframing happening in this season. We see that many churches are beginning to wake up and understand that the church is one important part of the ecology of the neighbourhood where we are placed to steward the community. So people are beginning to embody Jesus’ command to love their neighbour. For us at Neighbourhood Matters this is very exciting to see!

However I also think that this is not only a time to turn outwards but also to turn inwards in a deeper way. This is a moment where “deep calls to deep” like never before. As the world touches the pause button it can be time for the body of Christ to do some serious internal work that can only happen when we go through these liminal times. The liminal, in-between space that we inhabit now, where we don’t know what the new normal looks like, can be disorienting. However it is also a time that the Spirit can do the deepest work in us.

If you are a minister in a church it may be a time when the Spirit is asking you to look at your work habits, patterns and self-care.

When I was pastoring a church, there were unrealistic expectations placed on me. Clearly, there were some things I could not do and I should have simply said “no” to. But my pride and thinking that a “pastor should be able to meet all needs” got in the way. I was exhausted and often anxious. So I feel for ministers in churches today who feel more like producers than pastors as they navigate this new online space. Be kind to yourself – you’re probably not an expert on this. Know your limitations and that you can’t meet all needs. Learn to say no even when you feel the pressure and anxiety of having to provide and be all things for your flock. When I was the minister in a church my robust ego did damage to my body, mind and spirit. But this is not what God wants. God cares more about us than our productivity.

But this time is not just for pastors and ministers. As the body of Christ we should be thinking about what the “new normal” might look like when this season passes. Two things I’m asking people today is:

What will you keep from this season and take into the new?

 What is this season telling you to leave behind?

When we are forced to stop relying on all the props in our lives, often the Spirit can show us our own insecurities, “idols”, bad habits and internal struggles. This is not to shame us of course, but to move us towards becoming Christ-like, the ultimate Human. Maybe it’s a time to listen to these inner rumblings in our hearts, minds and bodies and attend to them in this time of solitude.

Many are using the word apocalypse in this time. We know that the word does not literally mean “the end”; it means something more like “unveiling” or “revelation”. So what is this season revealing about you? What is being unveiled about our world and humanity? What is being shown up about our environment? These are good questions to ask today in this space we have been given.

The people of God are bearers of hope even in the midst of – perhaps especially in the midst of – difficult times. We long for a better world. We long for the reign of God to invade our universe. Maybe this time of disruption and upheaval is a time for this new world to emerge. But we need to do the hard work of turning inwards for this new place to manifest.

After all, if we the people of God are seeking and praying for transformation, if we are hoping for a better new normal or world, it starts one person at a time with each of us facing our inner chaos, praying that God makes something beautiful out of us.

Photo by Geoff Maddock

Instagram: gmphoto

Fb: Geoff Maddock Photography

In this time of social isolation, physical distancing and people out of work, one good way to help out a neighbour is to support local businesses.

Locally-owned cafés, restaurants, grocery stores and other retailers are a crucial part of the ecology of the neighbourhood. Not only do they provide us with the things we need, but for some people they are the only point of social contact. Neighbours mingle in shops as they decide what to buy. In cafés and restaurants relationships are nurtured, business partnerships are formed and families and friends relax after a hard day’s work. And businesses shape the character of a community with their shopfronts and displays and colours and odours.

It’s made us sad to see so many local businesses now struggling, or even closing down, in our community.

There’s a café close to where we live, where we would sometimes meet friends for a cup of tea. Or have meetings. Or just sit with a tea for quiet reflection. Or have an omelette. Like many other cafés in our area, they are now offering takeaway.

So we had an idea: adopt-a-business.

We live in a large block of apartments. What if we were all intentional about buying just one takeaway coffee or lunch each week or even fortnight? This would help keep the café in business.

We approached the café manager and he was keen. We then dropped a simple flyer in the letterboxes of all the residents in our building to gauge interest in the idea before going ahead.

We heard back from one neighbour, who said she’s already trying to support the café by buying muffins. And when we went back to see the manager, he told us how a few of his customers from our building said they had seen the flyer. So we decided to go ahead.

The next step is that the manager will print copies of their menu and membership cards and place them in the letterboxes. They will be offering a 10% discount on drinks and 15% on food for residents of our building. 

We learnt a few things from this:

• There was an opportunity at our doorstep.
• We started small.
• We kept it simple.
• This was a great way to build relationship with the manager and owner.

There are others doing this, too – individuals, community organisations and churches. The ‘Love Your Neighbours’ initiative of St John’s Anglican Church at Diamond Creek in Victoria encourages members of the church to ‘adopt’ a local business for a year. And individuals and families of a United Church in Seattle, USA, are being encouraged to ‘Adopt a Restaurant’ in their neighbourhood.

Could this work in your neighbourhood? How would you implement something like ‘adopt-a-business’ in your community?

Let us know how you go!

Update: The café manager has done a letter box drop in our building. Here’s the flyer.

He messaged me today to say he’s already had a positive response, which is great news!

Even though this season is a really tough and disturbing time for all of us, we can certainly see so many opportunities for practicing neighbouring. This is something we have been passionate about at Neighbourhood Matters. Here are ten tips from us and what we have been trying to practice. What would you add?

1. Schedule zoom or virtual meetings with neighbours over dinner or drinks. “Virtual drinks” can humanise a meeting and make it a bit more social.

2. Start small and see where it leads. For example, we will talk to the cafe across the road about an “adopt a business” idea between the units in our building and the cafe.

3. Check in on neighbours through letterbox drops or phone calls, messenger and regularly ask how they are doing. Offer help.

4. Offer to go for walks with neighbours. We need to do this one on one now that we can only be in public places in pairs (except for family and households).

5. Being cautious about what we post on social media. We want to be realistic but also hopeful. We try to take into account people from all walks of life and what they might be experiencing during this time.

6. Smiling when we walk past people on the street. Social distancing can make us feel awkward but it’s important to make the effort to reach out and help people feel a sense of ease during these anxious times.

7. Engaging in small acts of kindness on the spot, e.g. giving someone a grocery item if they can’t find it and you have it.

8. Doing a prayer walk and asking God to show you how you might reach out in creative ways.

9. Finding out what local community organisations like neighbourhood centres or Meals on Wheels are doing and offering help or support, e.g. working the phones or organising any activities that are needed. What are some groups that already exist in your community that you can join?

10. Keep your primary emphasis local so that when this season is over you will have built strong connections and fostered a resilient neighbourhood for the future. It’s a great time to do this.

Throughout my adult life, I’ve been involved in a variety of welfare and community development organisations. Whether it’s helping at a lunchtime ‘drop-in’, setting up an overseas charity, coming alongside people at the margins of society or raising funds for people in need, it’s been rewarding to see needs met, relationships built and lives changed.

But I’ve also had niggling questions that continue to bother me: Are we building dignity or encouraging dependency? Are we helping or are we hurting?

Perhaps the underlying question in all of this is: How do we exercise power? Philosophers, social scientists and theologians have wrestled with this question for millennia. It’s an important question that challenges our practices in everything from politics to the workplace, from community organisations to families, and from religious institutions to relations between genders, races and different age groups.

Last September, World Vision, one of the world’s largest international non-government organisations, announced a switch in how it would run its child sponsorship programs:

Almost 1,000 children in rural Guatemala gained sponsors this month from a megachurch in southern Indiana.

But in this case, it was the indigenous children in need who pondered photos of smiling faces and chose one they felt a connection with. And it was the adult donors in the United States who nervously waited, wondering who would pick them.

World Vision explained that the goal of this switch ‘is to empower children, letting them make the first of many choices during their sponsorship’. It’s the latest in decades of adjustments to child sponsorship – an approach to development that has been praised for transforming lives but also criticised for exploiting children or simplifying complex issues of development. This new model, aptly named ‘Chosen’, is a positive step for two reasons.

Firstly and most obviously, it’s a reversal of the usual power relationship. Guatemalan children experiencing poverty and disadvantage are being given a choice of who will support them. They are no longer passive recipients but active decision-makers. At the other end, the potential sponsors in the US are experiencing some of the sense of anticipation and vulnerability that the children would normally experience.

Secondly, it’s a subversion of the individualistic model of sponsorship. The children in the community gather for a ‘choosing party’ – ‘a celebration where the kids choose their sponsors’. You can just imagine the fun these kids have when looking at photos of American churchgoers together, commenting on their smiles or the colour of their hair, wondering what kinds of houses they live in, and then celebrating their new relationships.

There’s a lot we can learn from World Vision’s model. What would it look like to reverse the power relationship in our own communities, organisations and relationships? How can we make sure that those who receive our help have a greater say?

I think ‘Chosen’ is a great first step. But I’m still not comfortable with the word ‘empowerment’. Craig Greenfeld writes that:

built into the word “empowerment”, is the sense that someone is giving power to someone else. To empower someone, you need the powerful to give power to the weak. And if you can give power to someone, you can also take it away.

‘Chosen’ still leaves the children in Guatemala vulnerable. While they are now able to choose who sponsors them, they are not involved in shaping what the sponsorship program looks like. They are still not equal partners with the sponsors, but recipients of their help.

Of course kids will always be dependent to some extent, but what would it look like for these sponsor children to move from ‘empowerment’ to ‘ownership’? And how would this look in our own communities, organisations and relationships?

How to do Nothing: Resisting the attention economy

By Jenny Odell

(Brooklyn, New York: Melville House, 2019)

When I saw the title of the book How to do Nothing: Resisting the attention economy, I had mixed feelings. On the one hand I felt a sense of joy and freedom at the thought of living a life where one does little and is unencumbered by responsibilities. We live in such a congested, fast-paced and distracted world that the thought of doing nothing seemed countercultural and attractive to me. On the other hand my conscience spoke to me loud and clear saying that in this day and age, where the world seems to be in perpetual crisis, more than anything, we need to be doing something. Certainly not nothing.

As it turns out, Jenny Odell’s recent and popular book is not about how to do nothing, so in that sense the title can be misleading. However, by choosing such a confronting title, it gives us an indication of the radical nature of her thesis. She is a strong critic of the ‘attention economy’, which, she believes, in essence wants us to continually be doing something – usually for the profit and marketing of various organisations. She writes: ‘Nothing is harder to do than nothing. In a world where our value is determined by our productivity, many of us find our every last minute captured, optimized, or appropriated as a financial resource by the technologies we use daily’. I got a sense as I read this book that Odell has felt increasingly suffocated by the technologies that have created an atmosphere where her sense of identity and reality have been challenged.

This is something I can relate to. More and more I find that I need to be switched on to some kind of device or be engaged in online conversations or be up to date with the latest hot topics in order to be someone. I think it’s something many people are feeling today and this could be why Odell’s book has become so popular. Yet we also have a strong suspicion that something is wrong and that we were not made to live this way. Odell writes: ‘And yet a certain nervous feeling, of being overstimulated and unable to sustain a train of thought lingers. Though it can be hard to grasp before it disappears behind the screen of distraction, this feeling is in fact urgent’.

Even though Odell is not a Christian this is a relevant book for Christians who are, like everyone else, caught up in the attention economy. Odell is a prophet for these times speaking a message we all need to hear as we spend time branding ourselves, creating platforms and marketing our lives. More than ever, Christians need to be deeply suspicious of the false cultural narratives that can function as idols in our lives. I found it interesting that this kind of critique is emerging from the secular world more in a confronting way than from the Christian community. It made me wonder if we as Christians are too in love with our platforms and addicted to the ease of communication that is now possible, and have not sufficiently challenged and critiqued the zeitgeist of our times.

Odell has written this book as an act of ‘political resistance’ against the attention economy and as a statement that our lives are ‘more than an instrument and therefore something that cannot be optimized’. She offers a stinging critic of social media such as Facebook, stating that ‘Facebook and Instagram act like dams that capitalize on our natural interest in others and an ageless need for community, hijacking and frustrating our most innate desires, and profiting from them’. So the first step in ‘how to do nothing’ is to ‘drop out’ and resist the attention economy.

However this is not the only solution. What I like about Odell’s book is that it is not simply critique, protest and resistance. She offers what she sees as a way of resisting the attention economy. Odell believes we must firstly act by dropping out, then move outwardly and orient towards people around us, and finally move downward and connect to place. So it’s not as simple as shutting down our apps and avoiding social media. Odell is realistic and understands this is impossible. However her strategy is one of taking back control of our lives by avoiding what she believes is doing us damage and, alternatively, engaging in the good. It almost sounds like Christian theology in that the gospel tells us to repent of the things that are dehumanising us and to reorient towards the values of the reign of God and Shalom. I found it refreshing to read a book that was encouraging me to say ‘no’ more often as a way of resisting the pressures of the attention economy.

What does engaging in the good look like for Odell? She is an artist so her first step is to highlight the importance of paying attention. If the attention economy tries to split our focus, bring distraction and keep us busy with algorithms designed personally for our consumption, we are to stand apart from this and instead become humans again, engaging in our world by paying attention and focusing. Odell believes that as we increasingly engage in our ‘bioregions’ we become grounded and therefore our sense of identity and reality returns to us:

As I came to know my bioregion, I found myself increasingly identifying with a totemic complex of fellow inhabitants; Western fence lizards, California towhees, gray pines, Manzanita, thimble-berries, giant sequoias, poison oak. When I travel I no longer feel like I’ve arrived until I have ‘met’ the local bioregion by walking around, observing what grows there and learning something about the indigenous history of that place.

Moreover, as we connect with our place and neighbourhood, we make relationships with people who are unlike us. With social media we tend to gravitate to people who affirm our beliefs, however the neighbourhood is a place where very different people must learn to coexist. Odell’s approach is quite incarnational though I doubt she would use that word. As Christians we practice an incarnational or embodied spirituality rather than an ‘other-worldly’ spirituality. Our faith must be put into practice and fleshed out in the local spaces where we live. So I found Odell’s thinking here to be in line with the way we must flesh out the gospel in our lives.

Odell is not an isolationist but instead suggests a posture of critical distance and ‘removing oneself from the clamour and undue influence of pubic opinion’. But again, she then proposes engagement through face-to-face conversations and gatherings, for instance, instead of relying solely on social media interactions. She feels that this is somehow more ‘real’ because it is contextual, in contrast to online interaction which suffers from ‘context collapse’, a problem if we want to have intelligent, meaningful discussions with each other about improving our world.

I found this book intelligent, creative, stimulating and challenging. Odell confronts us with who we have become, a disembodied, distracted society moulded by technologies with not so altruistic agendas, and calls us to become something different – a community that is human.

One of the thoughts that will stay with me is her summary of the change that has occurred within her as a result of resisting the attention economy. There is almost the whisper of God in her reflection on this transformation. She writes:

I find that I’m looking at my phone less these days. It’s not because I went to an expensive digital detox retreat, or because I deleted any apps from my phone, or anything like that. I stopped looking at my phone because I was looking at something else, something so absorbing that I couldn’t turn away. That’s the other thing that happens when you fall in love. Friends complain that you’re not present or that you have your head in the clouds; companies dealing in the attention economy might say the same thing about me, with my head lost in the trees, the birds, even the weeds growing in the sidewalk.

I hope it’s a change that happens in you and me also.

(This review was first published at http://www.ethos.org.au/online-resources/Blog/book-review-how-to-do-nothing, Republished with permission.)

Even before summer had started last year, Australia was struggling with drought, increased temperatures, and bushfires.

Bushfires are a way of life for us here in Australia, but towards the end of last year and the beginning of 2020 we experienced the worst bushfires on record. As of two weeks ago, in the state of New South Wales alone, 17 people had died and 137 fires were still burning, with 60 uncontained. Land the size of Belgium had been destroyed and 1356 homes had been lost. This is without counting the devastating impact on our animals and wildlife. Currently things are beginning to return to normal again, though we might question what this “new normal” looks like.

What are some theological reflections we can make around these devastating bushfires that could also be applied to other natural disasters which might now increase with climate and environmental changes? Our theology needs to speak into the “new normal” of our times.

Place matters to us

One revealing and hopeful truth that has emerged from the ashes of these devastating bushfires is that people are realising more and more the importance of place, land and neighbourhood. Churches are having worship services outdoors in nature and on the beach, neighbours from all walks of life are helping each other out, and diverse communities are grieving for lost buildings, burnt land and public spaces that have been obliterated. This not only indicates how important our environment is to us as human beings but how deeply connected we are to the physical, tangible stuff of life. These spaces and places are contexts where we make memories and where we live out life in all its fullness. If we as Christians believe that the most important thing is simply “saving souls”, we are seriously mistaken. Our task now is nothing less than nurturing our precious spaces, places and environment and then restoring them back to life. Indeed, we should see this as an obligatory spiritual discipline.

Walter Brueggemann, in his well-known book The Land: Place as gift, promise and challenge in biblical faith, writes:

“Space means an arena of freedom, without coercion or accountability, free of pressures and void of authority. Space may be imaged as a weekend., holiday, a vocation and is characterized by a kind of neutrality or emptiness waiting to be filled by our choosing…But ‘place’ is a very different matter. Place is space that has historical meanings, where some things have happened that are now remembered and that provide continuity and identity across generations. place is space in which important words have been spoken that have established identity, defined vocation and envisioned destiny. Place is space in which vows have been exchanged, promises have been made, and demands have been issued. Place is indeed a protest against the unpromising pursuit of space. It is a declaration that our humanness cannot be found in escape, detachment, absence of commitment and undefined freedom.” 

Place matters to us. Turning spaces into places is a spiritual discipline. Today, more than ever, our faith needs to be embodied, “this-worldly” and grounded, rather than “other-worldly”, disembodied and Gnostic.

Place and land matter to God

Place and land have always been important in Scripture. We see this most immediately in the Old Testament with the expression of Israel’s faith being so closely tied to the land. According to God, humans can impact the land and the land responds appropriately. In fact, the striking way in which the land is spoken about in the Old Testament is often something we don’t pay enough attention to. J. Joosten, in People and Land in the Holiness Code, writes about verses such as Leviticus 18:25, 26:35 and Numbers 13:32: “In these verses the land is clearly pictured as an entity distinct from its inhabitants. Moreover, it is represented as an independent agent. While it is stated in the same context that YHWH will cast out the nations dwelling in the land (18:24; 20:23), in the present verses the casting out is done by the land itself.”

Often we forget that the New Testament also expresses and builds on this attention to the land, even though more subtly. The authors Keesmaat and Walsh of Romans Disarmed: Resisting Empire, Demanding Justice intriguingly interpret the book of Romans as pointing to care for the environment and the land, arguing that Paul’s narrative is simply an extension of his Jewish heritage. They write:

In Romans 8:20 (Paul) uses the language of futility to describe the bondage that creation is suffering. Futility is the language of idolatry throughout the Scriptures … such idolatry is overwhelmingly linked to to abuse of the land.

Further, they argue that the groaning of creation Paul refers to in Romans eight

has often been viewed as generic metaphorical language, a poetic way to describe the fact that creation also suffers as a result of human sin. However, just as such language pointed to specific economic and social practices in the scriptures of Israel, so also Paul is describing specific economic and social practices in relation to the land.

These bushfires ought to remind us that the care of place and land are important to God. What we do or don’t do on and to the land where we live has consequences. This means that as human beings we are called by God to steward our land well and this is of primary importance. If we don’t care for our land, it may react against us. We need to take this seriously and theologically since our land is currently being devastated.

The importance of “micro-practices”

During the bushfires there was a lot of talk about climate change and environmentalism. Today this is a hot topic in our world and rightly so. However, concepts like “environmentalism” can sometimes make us feel distant from a grounded reality.

It’s hard to think about how to engage with these big issues. We can feel helpless. Social media activism is helpful in some ways for creating awareness and for self-expression, however we need more than that. We need micro-practices that connect with these “macro-narratives” in our world today.

In the wake of Australia’s bushfires, there is a lot to reflect on theologically that relates to what the Spirit is saying to us today. Our faith must become more grounded, we must make place and land a priority and our actions must match our words as we practice spiritual disciplines that go beyond prayer, church attendance and Scripture reading. As crucial as these habits are, we need to complement these ancient practices with spiritual practices for the times we are living in that give expression to and form our faith for the care of our world.

Advent is a time of waiting and longing.

This season before Christmas we prepare our hearts, we make room for the Sacred in our lives in the midst of a world that can be frustrating, disappointing, broken and painful. We long for a better place to call home.

At Advent I turn to Mary the mother of Jesus who carried this man-God in her womb for a season. Mary had to learn to wait and long for the birth of this child into our world.

I think about the sacred space of Mary’s womb. Something so human, a uterus, carried something so special- God. I love this intertwining of the sacred and secular, the ordinary with the extraordinary. Flesh and blood mixes with holiness, the mundane mingles with the spectacular. How did Mary practice the discipline of discernment in this season I wonder? Initially she feared the Sacred. Did this ultimately turn to joy? We see from the Magnificat (Luke 1:46ff) that it did!

What are the sacred spaces that you could make way for at this season in your life and in the neighbourhood? Where do you find the ordinary and extraordinary mingling? How can you practice discernment of the Holy Spirit this season? The Spirit sends us out on mission just as (S)He did with Mary, can we cooperate and join with God in the redemption of our neighbourhoods? Is this what we long for?

I love this quote by Henri Nouwen:

Recently I read an article that a friend sent me about human extinction.

This long, well-written and intelligent article starts like this:

For much of my life, I thought our species would soon go extinct. I assumed we might last another hundred years if we were lucky.  Now I suspect we are facing extinction in the near future. Can I speculate as to exactly when that might happen?  Of course not.  My sense of this is based only on probability.  It might be similar to hearing about a diagnosis of late stage pancreatic cancer.  Is it definite that the person is going to die soon?  No, not definite.  Is it highly probable?  Yes, one would be wise to face the likelihood and put one’s affairs in order.

So while human extinction may not be definite, claims Ingram, it is highly probable and we should prepare ourselves. The article then gives evidence for this diagnosis by sharing well-researched data about climate change.

So what do we do in the face of probable extinction? According to Ingram, we join movements that have woken up to the crisis like Extinction Rebellion or other groups which are similar,  find calm in activities like nature-walking and meditation, avoid watching too much news on climate change, serve others, be grateful and realise that evolution will take its course. In other words, enjoy life and love others because soon humanity will cease to exist.

I found this article deeply disturbing for many reasons. A journalist from the Triple J Hack program also took a personal journey into the rabbit holes of these extinction movements. I was left wondering about people’s mental health as they join these groups which believe in the end of all things. With shows like Years and Years coming to our screens, we are continually presented with images and visions of death, despair and pessimism.

Whether or not you believe that humanity will cease to exist in around 100 years or less is a secondary issue for me. What is crucial however is deciding what posture we are going to take in the midst of doomsday prophetic movements, the effects of climate change impacting the earth more and more, and insufficient action by governments and citizens.

Will we be prophets of doom or prophets of hope?

Without a doubt, Christianity sits on the side of hope.

This posture provides an alternative for all people of course, not just Christians – that even though many things will end, God’s Spirit is at work today in the renewal of all things. Yes things are dying, but yes things are also being renewed and being brought to life daily. What we need to do is to courageously participate with God at this time in the renewal of all things even when our culture woos us to bask in melancholy, pessimism and doomsday messages.

What do we do?

I agree with Ingram in many ways, we love, we serve, we become grateful. But we also work for change, we hope not only in an emotional sense, but with the assurance that things can transform because there is a God whose grace and love sustains this world. Our hope leads us to turn to God and also work with God’s Spirit for the transformation of our world, even in the midst of the immense suffering that could result from climate change. And how do we do this? We get involved in local ways in the neighbourhood such as building community, finding ways to recycle waste and reducing our consumption. We point to the truth that things do need to change if we want to restore our world.

Instead of joining doomsday movements, we become a movement of hope in our communities and do works for the good of this world. This is our call in this age of extinction despair.