This Easter, buy a chicken, not an egg!

The International Development arm of the Salvation Army is running an Easter campaign with a twist. Instead of eggs, they are encouraging people to buy chickens. They’ve found places where chickens are required: Mozambique, Kenya and Tanzania and figured out that widows, orphans and HIV/Aids patients can exit the poverty cycle through owning a chicken.

Not only do chickens provide fresh eggs, which are a good source of protein for a needy family, but as chickens multiply, the eggs can also be sold to provide extra income to cover family expenses, like food, clothing or the children’s schooling. Chickens grow fast, are easy to take care of and don’t occupy too much space. The chickens you buy this Easter will go to chicken projects in Africa that are providing opportunities to build a better life.

Find out more here: http://salvos.org.au/said/news/2010/02/18/this-easter-buy-a-chicken-not-an-egg/

Buy the chicken here: http://salvos.org.au/said/donate/gift-catalogue-shop/product/chickens/

Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million homes and businesses turned their lights off for one hour to make their stand against climate change. Only a year later and Earth Hour had become a global sustainability movement with more than 50 million people across 35 countries participating. Global landmarks such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge, The CN Tower in Toronto, The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and Rome’s Colosseum, all stood in darkness, as symbols of hope for a cause that grows more urgent by the hour.

In March 2009, hundreds of millions of people took part in the third Earth Hour. Over 4000 cities in 88 countries officially switched off to pledge their support for the planet, making Earth Hour 2009 the world’s largest global climate change initiative.

Earth Hour 2010 takes place on Saturday 27 March at 8.30pm (local time) and is a global call to action to every individual, every business and every community throughout the world. It is a call to stand up, to take responsibility, to get involved and lead the way towards a sustainable future. Iconic buildings and landmarks from Europe to Asia to the Americas will stand in darkness. People across the world from all walks of life will turn off their lights and join together in celebration and contemplation of the one thing we all have in common – our planet. So sign up now and let’s make 2010 the biggest Earth Hour yet!

For more info visit: http://www.earthhour.org/

More than 27 Million slaves exist today, more than ever before in history. Many of these slaves are forced to work on cocoa farms, the source of the world’s chocolate. 80% of the world’s cocoa is collectively supplied by Western Africa, where hundreds of thousands of children working in these cocoa fields are subjected to the worst forms of child labour and are often abducted and trafficked across borders. That’s just children—millions more suffer in an industry notorious for slavery, cruelty and sexual exploitation.

But there is good news! The chocolate you choose can help brighten the future for thousands of cocoa farmers and their families in developing countries. When you choose Fairtrade Certified chocolate you’re helping create a better and brighter future for these farmers and their families through the fair price they receive as well as additional funds to develop their communities and invest in everyday things like education and healthcare. Fairtrade certification eliminates child labour and the use of forced slave labour and ensures adequately safe working conditions.

This Easter, make the right choice for your chocolate, and join the 21st Century Abolitionist Movement to eradicate slavery in our lifetime. Choose Fairtrade. Below is a list of selected companies that manufacture fairtrade easter eggs or bunnies. Many of these are available through major supermarkets and specialty stores, and the rest can be ordered online:

Chocolatier (Easter Eggs):
http://www.chocolatier.com.au/products/ProductsEaster.htm

Lindsay & Edmunds (Easter Eggs and Bunnies):
http://www.lindsayandedmunds.com.au/

Cocolo (Easter Eggs):
http://cocolo.com.au/

Oxfam Shop (Easter Eggs & Bunnies):
http://www.oxfamshop.org.au/pages/5507273

Eco Child (Easter Egg):
http://www.ecochild.com.au/product_info.php?products_id=1726

Biome (Easter Eggs & Assorted Chocolate):
http://www.biome.com.au/shop_index.php?cPath=415&osCsid=a848358bb52bc11eebf1c4c445107ae1

Tribes & Nations (Easter Eggs):
http://www.tribesandnations.com.au/chocolate/

For more information, visit the Fair Trade Association of Australia & NZ: http://www.fairtrade.com.au/get-involved/campaigns/make-fairtrade-choice-easter.

This is a continuation of Imitation: Part 1, where we discussed the imitation of culture. We’ll now be continuing the discussion on the pervasiveness of imitation in the pentecostal movement, but this time talking about the imitation of eminent church practice.

Before we begin, lets define the term: “eminent church practice.” Essentially, this term encompasses what is considered “successful” or “effective” church practice. For example, Pastor X of Church X implements a new strategy or style and all of a sudden numbers increase and Pastor X writes a book on “how to grow a church”. Church planters and ministry leaders read the book, travel to hear him speak and implement this strategy, almost identically as was first done by Pastor X and expect, naively, to garner identical results.

Hillsong is a case in point. No matter where I go on this planet, the church I visit always seems to bust out at least two Hillsong songs during the service. Its uncanny to see the extent to which these churches go to ensure an exact replica of a Hillsong experience. The lead singer even looks like Joel Houston, the long hair, scruffy beard, the v-neck shirt and the neck scarf or necklace. Its quite funny actually. Now don’t get me wrong, Hillsong’s music is great, but poor repetitive imitations of Hillsong music gets annoying.

The standardization of church experience in the West is uncanny. Its almost like the McDonaldisation of church, no matter where you go, you are guaranteed the same taste. A couple of fast songs, some slow ones (all of which were likely written by 1 of 12 prominent Christian artists), some announcements and offering, then someone preaches at you in a style and tone that sounds astonishingly familiar. What happened to creativity and originality? They’ve completely vanished.

Why does church even happen this way? Is that the biblical model? Its hardly the church that is so beautifully narrated to us in Acts. Why? Because when churches are planted, they aren’t built upon the foundation of new testament ecclesiology, they are built upon the pragmatic success stories of megachurches. They aren’t an expression of the unique character and make up of their congregation, they are a carbon copy of the big church down the road that seems to be growing like wildfire.

I’ve touched briefly on music, but language is something that also gets packaged and puppetted. There are a precise set of terms (lets call it Christianese) that are used repetitively, things like “generation of young people”, or words like “literally”. Public prayer also sounds like the recital of a script full of cliche, auto-pilot language that almost always begins with “Lord, we just wanna…”. Some of the youth pastors even have the same haircuts. Conferences are another perfect example of imitation. You have churches of 50 people holding conferences just cause everyone else does it. But it loses its meaning in the midst of imitation.

There is a lot more I could say about this topic, particularly about how creativity ought to function in a limited-resource setting, but I explore that exact topic in depth here: http://www.theproject.org.au/createjustification.html

Imitation robs us of the ability to create something that is a unique expression of the individuals that make up the diverse body that is our church. Instead we replace it with a petty copy of what someone else has done. True creativity is based not on conformity and imitation, but on the celebration of authenticity and individuality. It is with these traits that men and women have pioneered the greatest churches, and the most successful ministries, organisations and companies.

The irony of the process of trying to become successful through imitation, is that we ultimately doom ourselves to hopeless mediocrity. What works for someone in their particular context at that particular time is unique to their own journey, including the results they garnered. The beauty of their experience is that it is unique to them, but as the quote explains, we bereave ourselves of our own beauty, to come short of someone else’s.

Call + Response, the feature rockumentary on slavery, has come up with a brilliant idea for putting pressure on big corporations to ensure the eradication of slavery and forced labour. Its called Chain Store Reaction, check it out: http://www.chainstorereaction.com/

Thanks Amy Shand.

From World Vision:

Green & Black’s chocolate to go Fairtrade!

Green & Black’s chocolate has announced that it will convert 90% of its range to Fairtrade by the end of 2010, and its entire range by 2011. This is exciting and very welcome news!

These announcements are great news for cocoa farmers in developing communities. Through this Fairtrade deal they will receive economic, social and environmental benefits, empowering farmers, their families and communities.

This commitment by Green & Black’s, which is owned by Cadbury, supplements Cadbury’s existing commitment to make its Cadbury Dairy Milk product Fairtrade and available to Australians by Easter this year.

You may have heard that multinational company Kraft Foods are expected to confirm the purchase of Cadbury Global in the coming days. In welcoming Green & Black’s announcement, World Vision calls on Kraft to honour Cadbury’s commitments to covert its product range to Fairtrade.

For more information read the Green & Black’s and Fairtrade joint media release.

“The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it because it was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator, something else is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another man’s” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The first time I heard this quote, it rattled me big time. The significance of what is being said here is profound. From a ministry-focused perspective, this is particularly weighty, let me explain why. I’ve had the chance to travel quite a bit and during those travels I’ve visited churches all around the world. Coming from a pentecostal/charismatic background, most of the churches I’ve visited have been part of this tradition. Now, one thing that typifies this whole movement is this: imitation.

Imitation plays out in two ways during the establishment of a pentecostal church: the imitation of culture and the imitation of eminent church practice. Lets discuss the first. Contemporary churches look very closely at culture to understand perceived human need. This is a fatal mistake. Let me explain: my understanding of culture is that it is a social apparatus constructed in order to meet the demands of the population at large. For example: people desire faster, easier communication with larger and more diverse audiences. Culture therefore forms itself according to meeting this need through creating social networking, video conferencing, VoIP etc, fundamentally transforming the way people interact with each other.

What happens is that churches then look to culture to understand what people like in order to attract congregants, and in this example create cool websites, podcasts, videos, facebook pages etc to communicate with their congregation. Here’s the problem: culture almost always gets it wrong. Keyword: “perceived” human need. If we define culture, using Robert Redfield, as “the shared understandings made manifest in act and artefact”, or as Clifford Geertz states “an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols”, then one needs little convincing to understand that our culture is in a crisis of legitimacy. The individualism, consumerism, materialism, nihilism, hyper-reality, obesity, vanity, erotomania, self-centredness and the epidemics of stress, overwork, suicide, waste and indebtedness of our post- modern culture are creating a pattern that is destroying our world.

So why would the church ever need to look to a lost and dying culture for answers that have already been given to them? For instance, people don’t need faster, easier communication with larger and more diverse audiences, they need authentic relationships, to be part of a genuine community. This quote sums it up: “People don’t need enormous cars, they need respect. They don’t need closets full of clothes, they need to feel attractive and they need excitement, variety and beauty. People don’t need electronic equipment; they need something worthwhile to do with their lives. People need identity, community, challenge, acknowledgement, love, and joy. To try to fill these needs with material things is to set up an unquenchable appetite for false solutions to real and never-satisfied problems. The resulting psychological emptiness is one of the major forces behind the desire for material growth” – Donella Meadows

It may just be that being ‘irrelevant,’ offering what has always been our strong point, an ‘alternative,’ may just be what those seeking an authentic life are really looking for. To follow Christ and to live out a genuine faith means, more often than not, confronting the patterns of this culture and living out the radical life that Jesus has called His followers to live. Christianity is not just a radical message; it’s a radical lifestyle. It can’t just be believed, it has to be lived. It challenges and confronts the way we consume, the way we interact, what we drive, where we live, what we say, what we eat, what we wear, what we buy, and whom we love. Behind the veneer of plastic promises and counterfeit dreams, lies a culture in desperate need of redemption, not imitation.

I’ll leave it at that today. In the next blog we will discuss the second kind of imitation: eminent church practice. So stay tuned…