Nathan 1 month old!

Nathan turned a month old on the 14th. It totally passed us by! Sorry Nathan. Happy mini-birthday, old chap.

Nathan is putting on a lot of weight! He now weighs 3.75kg, meaning that he has gained over a kilogram since birth! Who could blame him? His food comes in such nice containers!

I am convinced that he is not going to be a Christian, but rather a Rastafarian. He is TOTALLY laid-back and I can almost image him with a zol between the fingers. Hence, I have renamed him "Bob" (Marley). He sleeps for about 4 hours, wakes up, looks at the world, laughs, drinks, messes in his nappy and falls asleep again. He doesn't cry, but just lets us know that he needs more food. Sometimes we forget he is even there.

Matthew loves his brother to bits. He is the first to greet him in the morning, the last to say "Goodnight".

We are truly blessed!

God-complex

I know many ministers and pastors. Let us call all of them ministers for now. I am a minister myself, so what I am about to say, although generalised, speaks to me as well. I know many ministers for whom what I am about to describe is not true, but are people devout in their faith and whom I deeply respect and admire.

I am struck, listening to many colleagues (and others on TBN), how responsible ministers feel to convince people about God and the Christian faith. Before reading further, stop now and think about it for a while. My question to them is WHY?

The focus on this point is not so much the message that is declared, but the manner in which ministers tend to take responsibility for their hearers and measure their own effectiveness in ministry in numerical terms. A good service can therefore be described in terms of a good numerical response to an altar-call, the amount of tears shed during a moving sermon or prayer, even the size of a congregation.

The way many ministers take personal responsibility for the entrenching of God’s Spirit in the lives of the faithful is done to such an extent that it gives the impression that the opportunity they have been given to testify to their congregations is the only time God is able to speak to that person or group. It implies that God does not speak to the individual or congregation or society at any other point than when the minister flaps his/her gums from a nicely designed wooden- or Perspex pulpit. This is further amplified in ministers’ lack of being able to facilitate counselling sessions. Many of these events are not opportunities for people to discover their own path for recovery, but are made recipients of another sermon, or hear “What happened to me on-the-other-hand…” quickly followed by an invitation to the surrender their lives to the Lord. It is not surprising, as in my own ministerial training we had two 3-hour sessions “teaching” us how to counsel.

My question is this: I wonder if there is a common psychological profile that can be drawn up of ministers? Perhaps that will be the basis of my Psych-masters – studying ministers? It seems quite possible to me that many ministers find a natural place for control and power in the church as they recognize their own histories being riddled by a lack of control or power. This place of religious conviction and the ability and opportunity to address and influence other people then becomes so strong that no external reality to that of the institutional church is recognized or deemed to be acceptable. Prof Wessel Stoker suggested something to the same effect in his book “Is vragen naar zin vragen naar God?” – an excellent and easy-reading book and also available in English.

Does God really only speak through ministers? Further, does God only speak through ministers’ sermons and teaching? What we tend to forget is that even proclamation is a subjective and anthropocentric approach to give testimony concerning a God who is not confined to the limitations of our dimensions. Is it not arrogance to verbally declare that a specific theology or understanding of God is the full comprehension of all truth? For this reason, I struggle to listen to the convicted sermons of many, and am careful in what I say to my congregations. If ministers were the sole custodians of the declaration of the Word, then we should see much more “conversions” at Synods, Conferences, Circuit Quarterly meetings… but we don’t.

My mother is a lay-person who did not know about the two creation-narratives in Genesis until I pointed it out to her. She nevertheless acted as an instrument of God’s self-disclosure to me as a person. Not that God revealed Godself through her, but the awareness of God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ was clear in her presence and testimony.

What is impressive is not how many people a person has “won” for the Kingdom, but how “few” people were lost to the Kingdom because of that person. You catch my drift? So what if, for example, either Benny Hinn or John Wesley is responsible for 100 000 commitments at one crusade, but puts millions off from even considering Christianity when listening to that same message? Sorry for comparing Benny Hinn to John Wesley. So, I am not impressed by names such as Webb, Graham or whatever. I may know of a few, or even many who have come to faith through their testimonies, but that is all that I’ll know.

What fascinates me is how responsible many ministers/pastors feel for a particular individual’s soul, when their primary message to the world is that a human being is unable to affect salvation, but that it is an act of grace from God. Ironic.

Do I then believe that ministry is obsolete and that ministers all need therapy. Answer: “No”, and “It wouldn’t hurt”. Ministry is an essential function. It builds community. It creates opportunities for people to be humane, and where they are already humane, even more so.

This is what I believe. I believe in God. I believe that God reveals. I believe that people are convicted of this self-revelation by the power of the Spirit. I believe that all Christians are called to testify to this act of revelation and salvation, verbally and/or non-verbally, but non-judgementally. It is God who reveals, God who convicts and God who saves, God who judges. It is the same God who revealed God-self to Abraham, Isaac and Moses before ministers and the church existed. The same God who revealed Godself through Jesus Christ and convicts through the power of the Spirit.

Then why is it that I hear ministers declaring their feelings of guilt of not taking a day off in order to be the presence of God to others? Can they not be the presence of God to others on their day off? Can it be because of a ministerial God-complex? A powerless childhood? Can ministers allow God to speak for Godself and therefore not having to parade an “answer to all situations”?

I would like to work myself out of a job, so to speak, where people can trust their own encounters with God without feeling the need for it to be validated by a person with a clerical title.

Just some mind-wandering.

Words

A short lesson from a devotional book I'm reading (Thanks Pete, it is great!):

A man walked next to the shore and found a crowd gathered close to the water. As he drew closer he saw a man in a self-made boat getting ready to row across the ocean. As he was preparing, the crowd tried to persuade him to abort his attempt. "You will never make it in that boat!", "You will burn in the sun!", "You don't have enough food" were some of the comments made. As he set off, this man ran to the water's edge, yelling "Go for it! You can make it! We are proud of you". As he turned back the crowd stood silent. They asked him "Do you seriously believe that he can make it?". He responded "I don't know, but when he is in trouble I hope that he will remember my words and not yours!".

Words have the power to motivate or to discourage. Choose your words carefully, especially as we enter this Christmas season.

On a lighter note...

We went to the Lionpark outside Krugersdorp. Here Matt and I are stroking a 3 month old lioness! What an amazing experience.

God is great! To look into the eyes of a lion while scrathing her tummy is something to behold! Just to think that we won't dare do the same to her in a year or two!

Blessingss to all as we start on the Advent journey, recognizing that the world indeed needs a saviour, but that the signs of the Kingdom are here in a little boy sitting without threat next to a lion.

Sorry for the outburst!

Apologies to God and all readers for my outburst.

God answered in the funeral service held today at the Krugersdorp-North Nederduits Herformde Kerk.

Ds. Fourie preached on Habakkuk 1 and the concluded with Habakkuk 3. If you have an Afrikaans Bible, you will find Habakkuk's complaints much better expressed than what is available in the NIV. (My opinion).

Oom George, rest in peace.

Crime Again!

I am sick of this! My wife's sister's father-in-law was killed in his house in Krugersdorp a couple of days ago.

Oom George was a wonderful man who always had a smile on his face, a joke to share and who loved his family more than anything else. He was killed a day after returning from holiday, a holiday that he enjoyed with his wife.

He probably surprised the robbers in his home, who then killed him with a hoe.

What mother's child can do such a violent thing?

This is now the second act of violent crime experienced by this family. The first was Jason, Natalie's cousin, who was shot while sleeping in his bed. They stole R3 and a broken cellphone.

Excuse me for not feeling to ministerial, but I wonder what the hell God is doing while this is taking place. A question of theodicy. Don't feel compelled to try and answer this.

Nathan - news

Tomorrow Nathan will be 2 weeks old.

He has settled in very nicely and is enjoying home. So far, he has given us more than enough opportunity to sleep. He feeds at about 10:30pm and then again at 4:00am and then every 3-4 hours.

Nathan is peaceful and does not cry much - only when he gets impatient (a trait he got from his mother).

Matthew has moved into the role of "big brother" very well. He is proud of his brother and wants to share everything from his yellow motorbike to Smarties with him. In the photo you can see the love.

Thanks for all the well-wishes and interest! We believe that with all the love shown to our boys, they will grow knowing the family that God created which extends beyond bloodlines!

Masks

Last Sunday we had Remebrance services at our church. We remembered those whom we are in relationship with, but who have parted from this life.

Our focus was on our method of remembering, or our lack thereof. So, using the story of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1, we remembered together about our remembering. It is so difficult to remember effectively sometimes,for we all have our Elkanah's, Penninah's and sometimes critical Eli's wanting to comment on how we should feel.

This poem by Chalres C. Finn proved to be helpful in creating a place where we allowed ourselves to feel what we feel:

Please Hear What I'm Not Saying
By Charles C. Finn

Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear
For I wear a mask, a thousand masks,
Masks that I'm afraid to take off
And none of them is me.

Pretending is an art that's second nature with me,
but don't be fooled,
for God's sake don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure,
that all is sunny and unruffled with me,
within as well as without,
that confidence is my name and coolness my game,
that the water's calm and I'm in command
and that I need no one,
but don't believe me.

My surface may be smooth but
my surface is my mask,
ever-varying and ever-concealing.
Beneath lies no complacence.
Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.
But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.
That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,
a nonchalant sophisticated facade,
to help me pretend,
to shield me from the glance that knows.

But such a glance is precisely my salvation,
my only hope, and I know it.
That is, if it is followed by acceptance,
If it is followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself
from my own self-built prison walls
from the barriers that I so painstakingly erect.
It's the only thing that will assure me
of what I can't assure myself,
that I'm really worth something.
But I don't tell you this. I don't dare to. I'm afraid to.

I'm afraid you'll think less of me,
that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.
I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing
and that you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate, pretending game
With a façade of assurance without
And a trembling child within.
So begins the glittering but empty parade of Masks,
And my life becomes a front.
I tell you everything that's really nothing,
and nothing of what's everything,
of what's crying within me.
So when I'm going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I'm saying.
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying,
what I'd like to be able to say,
what for survival I need to say,
but what I can't say.

I don't like hiding.
I don't like playing superficial phony games.
I want to stop playing them.
I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me
but you've got to help me.
You've got to hold out your hand
even when that's the last thing I seem to want.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes
the blank stare of the breathing dead.
Only you can call me into aliveness.
Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging,
each time you try to understand because you really care,
my heart begins to grow wings --
very small wings,
but wings!

With your power to touch me into feeling
you can breathe life into me.
I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me,
how you can be a creator--an honest-to-God creator --
of the person that is me
if you choose to.
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,
you alone can remove my mask,
you alone can release me from the shadow-world of panic,
from my lonely prison,
if you choose to.
Please choose to.

Do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you.
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach me
the blinder I may strike back.
It's irrational, but despite what the books may say about man
often I am irrational.
I fight against the very thing I cry out for.
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls
and in this lies my hope.
Please try to beat down those walls
with firm hands but with gentle hands
for a child is very sensitive.

Who am I, you may wonder?
I am someone you know very well.
For I am every man you meet
and I am every woman you meet.

Hope you find it helpful too.

Nathan Daniel Bentley is here!

Nathan Daniel Bentley is here! He was born at 12:45, weighed 2.85kg.

Here is a pic of him shortly after birth.




Here is a proud dad!



Mommy and Son, happy together.



Here Nathan is sleeping.



Thanks for all the prayers!

Almost here!

Our baby boy is almost here. Natalie is scheduled for theatre at 12:30 on Tuesday the 14th November.

We are very excited about the little one's arrival, but a bit anxious at the same time. We ask for your prayers for health and a pleasant birth-experience.

We hope that Matthew and Little One (Name to be announced at his
birth) will grow up in a world that is tolerant, serious about peace and has the ability to love beyond the spectrum of faith and nationality.

Won't be blogging until next Tuesday. Got exams to write, baby to catch, dogs to feed, doors to open for strangers...

A positive experience

After writing on Tuesday, I quickly popped into MacDonalds for a hammy (To console my soul). On leaving the premises, I noticed a black guy heading for the door that I just pased through. Both his hands were full, so I quickly jumped to open the door for him.

Passing through, he looked my way and said "Thank you. I love the new South Africa. I now see you as a brother!".

Well, I didn't know what to say. In typical Dutchman style, I fumbled over my words, just to get the tail-end of "It's a pleasure" through to him. In retrospect, I should have given him a hug.

Just made me think that small things like opening a door for someone who's hands are full can affect the way in which we relate to each other.

Have you got a good story to share?

Another kind of sin

Job 38:1-7; 34-41
Hebrews 5:1-10
Mark 10:35-45


These were the lectionary readings for last Sunday. It speaks to me about the types of sin that we do not usually confess. Perhaps we don't because they do not fall in line with our understanding of sin.

Sin, to most, consists of actions, words, thoughts that are contrary to the nature and will of God. To be totally other to God's image is considered to be a place of fallenness. These passages do not speak of sin as being contrary to the image of God, but speaks of the places where we want to be like God too much.

Wanting to sit at His side.
James and John wanted to sit at his side. In other accounts it is their mother that puts forward this request. Sitting on the ruler's side meant a place of authority, a place where commands could be issued in the name of the "king" and to expect other subjects to obey on the weight of this authority. It is not surprising that Jesus responds with "You do not know what you are asking". Can anyone be in a place where they can speak on behalf of God, totally convinced that what they say or do is the absolute will of God? Extreme conservatives in the gay-debate are convinced that "God hates fags", while extreme liberals believe that "Jesus was a homo(sapiens)". It is a dangerous place, trying to speak on God's behalf. Perhaps this needs to be included in our prayers of confession, especially when our words cause unjust pain.

Wanting to tell God what to do.
In the story of Job, Job was frustrated with God and with life. "Why do the innocent suffer?" His frustration led to the point where he believed that he was able to see righteousness where God failed to do so. The natural response was to start telling God what to do and how to do it. A bit arrogant, we might think. So, in our arrogance, we pray that God must rid our society of crime, as if God stands idly by. We pray that God must heal gays and lesbians, as if God made a mistake and should form them in our (heterosexual) image. It raises a few questions. God responds to Job: "Who the hell do you think you are?" - paraphrase.

Wanting to be indespensible.
Perhaps God cannot do without me. Perhaps God would be stuck if I choose this career instead of that one, this spouse instead of that one. We have been caught up in the whole spin of predeterminism. Proving our loyalty to God through our actions, positions and status may be our way of holding on to the idea that if it weren't that way, the world would cease to exist. Guess what, God calls, we follow. See how this is written in Hebrews.

Some things to think about: My place before God, my place as a Christ-follower in society, my place as a person called by God to be a citizen of the Kingdom.

Bluebull country

It's a beautiful day in Pretoria. The Jacarandas are in full bloom, the Bulls are in the final, our congregation's Men's Fellowship braai-ed boerewors and ate it with pap-en-smoor at 8 this morning, talking rugby.

What a lovely day. Good luck Cheetahs!

Exams again!

At the beginning of this year I enrolled for 4 second-year Psychology subjects: Research in Social Science, Child and Adolescent Development, Personality Theory and Counselling Skills. Tomorrow I start with a whole series of exams. Why am I updating my blog? Because I am avoiding the books a bit longer. (Studied the whole day and am now a bit "gatvol").

Please pray for me.

It has been 7 years since I last wrote exams. Having done a lot of post-grad work, writing assignments, journal articles, dissertations, a thesis and presenting papers at conferences, it is now quite akward having to "cram" again. It feels nice - it reminds me of my time at John Wesley College (probably the most enjoyed time of my life) and the history that went along with it.

If you are bored and disinterested with life, then try this: enroll for a few courses somewhere and get an adrenalin-rush that will open up new perspectives in your world. It did so for me.

Blessings to all.

The Kingdom of God is at hand - the end of the church?

The more I read theologians like Barth, Moltmann, Hauerwas and the
Reformers, the more I become aware of the difference between the
institutional church and the movement of the Kingdom of God.

Christianity, represented through the institutional church, expressed
as a religion, is continuously challenged by the world, and I
believe, God, to be a bit more Christ-like. My friend, Peter Grassow,
recently posted a list of questions to the Christian church in South
Africa on one of our chatgroups, and to him I am grateful for nudging
me in this direction.

Karl Barth goes to great lengths to differentiate between "religion"
and "Faith" and does so specifically in Church Dogmatics Volume 1,
part 2. The discussion revolves around the doctrine of revelation and
asks whether Christianity is a religion of revelation or whether it
is a revelation of religion. I am not going to go into too much
detail here - go read it for yourself - but it seems as if the
Christian Church borders on being a religion of revelation, and at
the same time, believes itself to be the continuation of the full
revelation of God through Jesus Christ.

Now, this may sound very orthodox, but it poses a very clear
Christological- and we might add, a soteriological problem! The
Christological problem is found in that such an expression of
Christianity places too much emphasis on metaphysics and takes into
account the divinity of Christ at the expense of Jesus humanity. For
a more detailed explanation of how this takes place, wait for my
doctoral thesis due soon. Even the divinity of Christ in the teaching
of the church is distorted and the teaching itself may be
compromised by the fact that the church indirectly claims ownership
of the revelation in a way which is exclusive and self-centered.

There is a bit of an antinomianist in me, perhaps a rebel or a cynic,
but where institutional Christianity tries to use its structures,
discipline and claimed authority to work change in society, I cannot
help but feel that it is "urinating in the wind" - The word I wanted
to use will be blocked by the server. I similarly cannot help but
feel that when the world watches the church arguing about social
matters (often directed inward as self-evaluation), that this is
precisely how the church is perceived. Who wants to be part of this?
Urinating in the wind might be liberating, it might even feel
fantastic while you are doing it, but it only lasts for a while,
disappears into the ground and the few drops that messed on your
shoes will turn to stench!

What is going to save the world? I fear that it won't be religion,
even more so the institutional church. I nevertheless believe that it
is the little bit of Kingdom-yeast, working through people who do the
basics of the gospel right in their daily living (love God, love
neighbour as self), not under the banner of a certain denomination or
belief-system, which will bring about justice and mercy.

More and more of me believes that the Kingdom of God and the
institutional church are mutually exclusive. Both Moltmann and Barth
express the opinion that the church will cease to exist at the
consummation of God's Kingdom. The Church, even the church, is an
instrument of witness to a Lord who is God's revelation to all. It is
not the Lord, and it is not God's sole instrument of expressing love
and grace to God's creation. The sooner the institutional church
operates from this premise and stops deciding who is loved by God and
who is not, who is part of God's community and who is not, what the
clerics may wear and what they may not, the sooner we might see the
signs of a growing Kingdom here in our midst.

Just blowing off steam.

Every person needs a sanctuary.

Every person needs a place where they can get away and be at peace. My study has been such a place for years and when we moved into our own home at the end of last year, a house that did not have a study, my life was disrupted.

If you've been following my blog, you would have heard about the start of our building operations. Well, here she is:




I moved in about a week ago and have found my EARLY morning conversations with God, Barth, Moltmann and others fulfilling and deeply satisfying.

Here I am with my baby Mac and with Barth's Church Dogmatics conveniently within arms reach. Happy as can be!

Happy Birthday!

This is just a short note to wish my wife, Natalie, and her twin-sister, Michelle, a very happy birthday.

Natalie, we love you very much! You serve and love without hesitance. You are beautiful! You are appreciated and we pray that this year will be filled with love, fulfilment and joy.

What shall we say...

Win a fun holiday or a ... funeral?

September 23, 2006 Edition 1 Pretoria News

Staff Reporter

When one thinks of a church fete, prizes like heavily decorated cakes, cards and other homemade goodies spring to mind - but a funeral?

That's exactly what's on offer when the Randburg Methodist Church holds its fete on October 7.

For a mere R10, one can enter the raffle and win a self-catering weekend for 10 at the Malutizicht Lodge near Ficksburg, a self-catering weekend for four to six people at Little Eden, Cullinan, or a funeral worth R8 000 courtesy of undertakers Collinge & Co.

Congregation member Margaret Lombard, who is helping to arrange the fete, told Pretoria News Weekend that Collinge & Co's offer of the prize has been welcomed with open arms.

"Anyone who has had to pay for a funeral knows it's no laughing matter," she said.

Asked if it was not a strange prize to offer patrons, she pointed out that various kinds of businesses offered what they could - and Collinge & Co was no different.

"That is what they offered, and it was accepted with thanks."

Undertaker Mike Collinge said the prize consisted of a coffin and services, including the removal of the deceased, arranging the death certificate, arranging the funeral, preparation of the deceased in the coffin, conducting of the funeral at the chosen church, transport of the coffin to the cemetery or crematorium, delivery of the ashes and death certificate.

It did not include "third party payments" - costs such as donations to the minister, organist, verger, church, catering, flowers, doctor's fees, crematorium fees, cemetery, Press notices and the like - "as we have no right to dictate to the family regarding what they should do at the funeral".

Matthew's birthday

3 years ago we were anxious and scared. Our little Matthew was born with a series of heart-defects that threatened his life. He was born with dextrocardia, upstairs-downstairs ventricular orientation, VSD, ASD, PDA and the worst, transposition of the great arteries. In simple language, his aorta and pulmonary arteries were switched around, his heart was lying on the wrong side and was twisted sideways. Along with that he had several holes in his heart. Thanks to Dr. Colyn at UNITAS, Drs. Dansky, Mamorare, Colsen and Kinsley, Matthew had a successful repair when he was 4 months old, undergoing an 8-hour operation at the Walter Sisulu Paediatric Cardiac Centre at Sunninghill hospital.

Look at him now! On his birthday he is healthy and riding a bike!


Thanks for all the prayers, the commitment and knowledge of the doctors, and most of all, our Lord, who held us very close to his heart.

Short note

Just a short note to say that Matthew's operation went well. He was
discharged the same day and wanted to kick a ball on arriving back
home. Thanks for all the prayers!