“IT'S COMPLICATED”

Sometimes the obvious is little difficult to recognise. That’s why you might not have recognised that over the last few decades we have been transitioning out of our old world into the new world that we are now living in! We will remember the old world as the time when the world was much simpler, less connected, and international travel was restricted to the wealthy. You might recognise our new world by noting that it’s much more complex, much more connected, much more technological, much more instant, and much more travelled. Added to this, the old world was when things took time. When you ‘wrote’ to someone overseas it took weeks for your ‘message’ to be delivered. In this new and complex world you can communicate with someone on the other side of the planet instantly and even do it by live video! Back in the old world, power was centralised – movies used to come out Hollywood, software used to be developed in Silicon Valley, all fashion originate out of Paris, and the world’s financial powerhouses were all based based in Wall Street. In today’s new world, the most watched moving pictures are made by teenagers on their smart-phones, software is now called an app and is made by someone with a laptop sitting at their kitchen table, and a twenty-two-year-old Tasmanian RMIT fashion student now designs clothes that are admired all around the world. This is no longer your grandmother’s world and the portal we are all about to walk through into the new world will also have spiritual implications as well.

Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled
and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”
Matthew 9:17

 

HOW THE NEW WORLD OF COMPLEXITY BEGAN WITH THE MOON

In 1969 when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon it marked the dawn of the coming new world of complexity. The moon landing was an amazingly complex operation. NASA stated that it involved 400,000 people to enable it to happen! But the efforts to get Apollo 11 to the moon and two of the three astronauts on the moon spawned a raft of new technologies including satellite communications which would eventually transform television, radio, telephony, and the development of global positioning satellites (GPS). No longer would the world need undersea communication cables to communicate with each other. Thanks to this satellite technology, news could now be reported from anywhere on the planet to anywhere on the planet. The lunar landing proved that what was once thought of as unimaginable might well be possible if an array of experts in their field cooperated together under clear and visionary competent leadership. In 1969, unprecedented complexity had begun. 

And He said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven
is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”
Matthew 13:52

WELCOME TO YOUR NEW WORLD OF COMPLEXITY

The new world is a complex world — and we had better get used to it. It is a world made much smaller by affordable international travel, instantaneous global communication, the accessibility of the information, facts, knowledge, and opinions via the world wide web, electronic and digital financial capabilities. We once lived in a world where events on the other side of the planet had little bearing on events in our neighbourhoods — but not anymore — the world is now our neighbourhood. Perhaps this point has become nowhere more obvious than what started in the “Wet Markets” of Wuhan China. We watched the TV reports of this mysterious virus sweeping through a city in China that most of us had, up until then, never heard of. We discovered that this particular Chinese city, Wuhan, has a population of nearly a third the size of the entire population of Australia! When then saw something remarkable, which social commentator, Pastor Mark Sayers, described as emblematic of the new world we have now nearly fully transitioned into: the building of a one-thousand bed state-of-the-art hospital in just seven days!

The 25,000-square-metre (30,000 sq yd) Huoshenshan Hospital, was built by the Chinese in just 7 days

Mark Sayers describes these two events (COVID-19 breaking out in Wuhan and the Chinese hospital building projects) as emblematic of the new world that we are now in. He reasoned that the virus outbreak which happened in Wuhan travelled around the world in a matter of days – not years (as it might have done in the ‘old world’). Thus, in this new world we are each connected with people around the world more than we realise! Secondly, China’s response to the health crisis by building these hospitals in a matter of days (rather than the years it used to take in the ‘old world’) involved summoning the best earth-works operators, the best engineers, the best architects, the best medical equipment suppliers, the best medical personnel, to build a hospital from scratch in just 7 to 10 days! In the new world, Sayers argues, things can be done far quicker, more efficiently, and safer, than the way it used to happen in the old world. He even stated that this was especially evident with the development of the mRNA vaccines which he said involved the same principles of the Chinese hospital construction projects (a large team of the world’s best virologists, epidemiologists, and bio-chemists – all working cooperatively around the clock to produce this new world vaccine). But what Sayers completely underestimated or overlooked or failed to see, was the level of multi-national corruption that was at play in the COVID cover-up. A report later identified the involvement of the US Government in the Wuhan laboratory’s development of the COVID virus [SOURCE]. In addition to this, Sayers similarly, perhaps naively, did not realise the gross corruption involved in the global pharmaceutical companies (Moderna, Pfizer, et al) with national governments who falsely claimed that their mRNA ‘vaccines’ could prevent COVID and even the transmission of COVID by those who were ‘vaccinated’ [MORE].   

No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it,
the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins.
If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins.
But new wine is for fresh wineskins.”
Mark 2:21-22

 

THE IMPLICATIONS FOR THE CHURCH IN THIS NEW WORLD

These various events are described by Sayers as the indicators that we are now well into the transition from the old world into the new world of complexity. In the old world where life was relatively simple, and all good things took time, it might cause an old world native entering into this strange new world of rapid change, global interconnectedness, and breath-taking technological advancement to be a little overwhelmed. This is certainly the case for many churches who have struggled to navigate through all of the upheaval that this transition has forced upon them. This is why I think that it’s good for Christians to remember these great truths:

(i) God is sovereign. He is LORD of lords and KING of kings (1Tim 6:14-16). None of what is happening has caught God off-guard or taken Him by surprise. In the midst of so much upheaval and change, one thing is certain: God does not change.

(ii) Complexity is not at all difficult for God. God knows the name of every mosquito and every sparrow in the entire world (Luke 12:6). He knows the entire sequence of your genome – in order! (Luke 12:7) While most women can do what no man is capable of doing (do two things at once), God can do 7 trillion things at once and give of these tasks His full attention. We can trust God to manage this manage this complex universe (Luke 1:37). 

(iii) What is ‘complex’ and unknown to us is not to God. God knows how much to entrust to you with and has determined that you are capable of handling the part He assigns to you in what seems like His complicated and complex plan (Phil. 2:13). 

(iv) Churches are going to have to become used to being comfortable with little more complexity than they were comfortable with in the old world. The new world is a digitally connected world where community has taken on a new meaning. While some churches may have been slow to embrace live-streaming of their services or even reluctant to do so, those churches who have — and have worked at doing it well — have frequently found it to be very fruitful and effective in discipling people. In this new world, screens are here to stay (at least for the moment until hologram technology catches up). In this complicated new world the LORD will assign His people to the “lane” that best suits them and our role in this complex world is to stay in our lane (Matt. 16:18). 

(iv) Churches will have to increasingly learn how to connect with each other to pool their effectiveness. I’m one of these rare pastors who actually believes that God has ordained denominations as part of His complex plan for world evangelisation and discipleship. In the new world, one of the keys to success will be the ability to connect. Not only will congregations have to learn how to connect with other congregations, but they will also have to learn how to connect within their own congregations and perhaps utilise new technology to do so (Eph. 4:1-2). 

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. 
The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Second Corinthians 5:17

Therefore, fellow followers of the Christ let us not get too nostalgic about the passing of the old world and neither let us become too daunted by all that this new world introduces. In one sense while I am forecasting that our world has become and is increasingly becoming a complicated world, if we keep our eyes on Christ, and do what He calls each of us to do, we can trust that He has this complex world firmly in the grasp of His hand and will ensure that His Father’s plan of redemption will reach its climax at just the appropriate time.

He’s got the whole world in His hands
He’s got the whole wide world in His hands
He’s got the whole world in His hands
He’s got the whole world in His hands

He’s got the little bitty baby in His hands

He’s got you and me brother in His hands
He’s got you and me sister in His hands

He’s got everybody here in His hands

Songwriter: Love Geoffrey, 1927

Amen!

Your pastor,

Andrew

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THEY SAID IT COULDN'T BE DONE

 
But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Matthew 19:26

Christianity is a religion of impossibilities! Consider the following impossibilities. God did the impossible when He –

◊ created the universe from nothing (Gen. 1:1; Psalm 33:6; Jn. 1:3);

◊ created life from none-life (Gen. 2:7; Job 33:4; Jn. 1:4);

◊ enabled an elderly barren woman to conceive and bear a son (Gen. 18:14; 21:1-2);

◊ revealed the future in verifiable and specific detail through His prophets (Jer. 25:13; 29:19; Amos 3:7; Acts 3:18);

◊ sent His eternal Son into the world by being born of a young virgin girl (Isa. 7:14; Mtt. 1:23; Lk. 1:23; Rev. 12:5);

◊ empowered the Christ to perform miracles of healing (Mtt. 4:23), resurrections (Mtt. 9:25; 11:5), food-provision (Mtt. 15:36);

◊ raised the Christ from the dead (Mtt. 28:7; 1Cor. 15:4);

◊ translated (ascended) the resurrected Christ back into the dimension of eternity (“Heaven”) (Jn. 20:17; Acts 1:9)

◊ sent the Holy Spirit into the earth to spiritually regenerate, gift, and empower those who surrender/ed to the Christ (Acts 1:8; 2:4; Eph. 5:18; 1Cor. 12:7);

◊ enabled the apostles of Christ to perform miracles similar to the Christ (Acts 6:3; 19:11);

◊ despite virulent and brutal attempts to destroy both the Church and the Scriptures, He has miraculously preserved both (Acts 6:7; Psalm 119:89).

He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed,
you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”
Matthew 17:20

 

FOR THOSE WHO DARE TO DREAM

One of the first mobile phones in the 1990s was soon
likened to carrying ‘a brick’ around!

What was once thought of as impossible by one generation has frequently become common-place to the next generation because someone dared to dream and ask, “Why not?” In the mid-1990s, a young Bill Gates wrote a book entitled, The Road Ahead at a time when powerful computers filled entire rooms and personal computers were a novelty used for playing Space Invaders by those who didn’t have a book to read. In his book, Gates predicted that computing would soon be able to be done on a small hand-held device that could easily fit into your pocket and would be connected wirelessly to an invisible storage-“cloud” enabling users to access and retrieve enormous amounts of information instantly. He predicted that these hand-held computers would be integrated into mobile phones and would also enable identification (even national passports) and financial transactions to buy things without the need to carry credit-cards or cash. “Impossible!” Computer experts of the day scoffed at his brash and daring predictions. While Gates leveraged the resources of Microsoft to try and make it happen, and eventually developed a disappointing prototype, he was never able to achieve what he had forecasted in his book –

but that didn’t mean it was “impossible”! While Gates himself failed to fulfil his vision of what would later become known as a ‘smart phone’, another brash young computer engineer (Steve Jobs) took Gates’ vision and began to dream of a totally different way to merge the internet, a mobile phone, a music-player (“iPod”) and a computer, and thus, in 2007, the iPhone was introduced to the world — and what was once thought impossible has now become common-place. 

https://www.youtube.com/embed/MnrJzXM7a6o? 

  ‘THE PASSING OF THE IMPOSSIBLE’ BY F.W. BOREHAM

In 1914 F.W. Boreham marvelled at what was once thought impossible was now considered common-place. In writing in his weekly Hobart Mercury column (and later published by Epworth Press in a collection of essays called, Mountains In The Mist) he declared to his secular readers the position that Christians held about what constitutes the impossible – 

Of course we know, being the Christians that we are, that there is no such thing as an impossibility in the world or out of it. An impossibility is an impossibility. Impossibilities belong to the realm of mythology. They inhabit the same weird world as the brownies and the elves, the fairies and the ghouls. As serious and scientific and practical and believing men, we must frankly confess to ourselves that the very notion of an impossibility is, on the face of it, a ludicrous absurdity.
F.W. Boreham, The Passing of The Impossible, ‘Mountains In The Mist’, 1914, p. 38

When we consider the pace of change over the past one hundred years, it becomes apparent that what was considered impossible soon became common-place to the next generation. This applies not just to innovations such as the recent emergence of the iPhone, but also to previously ‘impossible’ human achievements including – the scaling of Mount Everest by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, breaking the four-minute mile by Roger Bannister, sending a manned spacecraft to the moon where Neil Armstrong and Buz Aldrin were able walk on the lunar surface, and while in 1910 the Men’s 50m freestyle world record was 86 seconds – in 2009, Brazilian, Caesar Cielo swam it in 20.91 seconds! And after Bjorn Borg had won 6 Roland Garros crowns (1974-1981), everyone thought it would be impossible for anyone to match that record, but last year (2020), Rafael Nadal won his 13th Roland Garros crown making him GOAT of clay court tennis after completing what most thought could never be done!

 

IMPOSSIBLE CHRISTIANITY!

It is assumed by many that modern Australia was first settled by the irreligious riff-raff of Britain’s over-crowded prisons. This is often the explanation given for how unChristian and unChurched Australians are why it would be impossible for Christianity to gain any traction in Australia. Added to this is the perception that the early Christian missionaries oppressed Aboriginal Australians who have then largely rejected Christianity. But consider the following challenges to these perceptions. In 1959, a young evangelist from the backwaters of North Carolina came to Australia to preach the gospel. When he arrived in Sydney, ten thousand people came out to hear him!

Even at night thousands of Sydney-siders braved the chill to come out to hear Billy Graham preach in the Sydney show-grounds on April 13th 1959

But it was when he came to Melbourne that something truly impossible happened! One hundred and thirty thousand people came to hear Billy Graham preach at the MCG!

Geoff Gawler was 10 when he saw Billy Graham at the MCG and says it changed his life.(ABC News: Jess Longbottom)

If Australians consider themselves irreligious, Tasmanians are a whole other level of irreligious. Take a tour of the Port Arthur historical site and you’ll gain an understanding why. But when Billy Graham came in York Park in April 1959, impossible as it was thought to be,17,000 people filled the stadium to hear the evangelist and, per-capita, more people than anywhere else in the world made a first-time commitment to Christ! 

“But that was then!” I hear you say? Consider then, that from this point churches around Australia began to experience extraordinary growth. A young returning missionary and his wife to Australia, Andrew and Lorraine Evans, took on a small church in Klemzig, Adelaide. Pastor Evans dared to believe that impossible is impossible and began praying for his church to grow extraordinarily. The church changed its name to Paradise Community Church (and is now called Influencers Church) and grew to be one of the first churches have a regular attendance of 2,000 people! But it kept growing and had a regular attendance of 6,000 before it established extra campuses around Adelaide to accommodate its growth. Meanwhile, around the same time, a young evangelist and his family moved to the pastorate of a church in Richmond, Victoria. This modest sized church of 150 attenders quickly grew to be a church of over 2,000 under the leadership of Pastor Phil Hills and planted around 200 churches around the perimeter of Melbourne! Today, “Richmond Temple” as it was known and today is known as Neuma Church has over 6,000 weekly attendees! Meanwhile, in Sydney, a young Brian Houston, planted a church in the Hills district of suburban Sydney and today that Sydney church has — what many people had always considered to be impossible — over 25,000 regular weekly attendees! In fact, I could mention churches in nearly each Australian capital city that now have attendances of over 10,000 people per week! Christianity impossible in Australia?  Think again. And time prevents me from documenting the many revivals and outpourings of the Holy Spirit on the Aboriginal communities of Australia resulting in an incredibly vibrant Christian Church among our First Nations peoples!

Now, there is one text among the great sayings of Jesus that I confess I never understood until very lately: ‘Verily, I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove ; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.’ Now, I was so incredulous about the possibility of removing mountains that I had to see it done before I really and truly believed. I am writing in Tasmania. And here in Tasmania we have a mountain — Mount Lyell. And gradually a strange faith stole into the hearts of men. They believed that underneath Mount Lyell there was an abundance of copper. They suspected it. They investigated it. They believed it ! And when they really believed it, they actually said unto the mountain, ‘Remove hence into yonder place!’ They believed; they moved the mountain; and nothing was impossible to them. The men who drove the spectral impossibilities from the shadows of our civilization were great believers, all of them. Columbus did not believe in the new world because he discovered it; he discovered it because he first of all believed it…[And] The history of missions is one continuous story of the invasion of the impossible.
F.W. Boreham, The Passing of The Impossible, ‘Mountains In The Mist’, 1914, p. 44-45

 

THE GOD OF THE IMPOSSIBLE!

What often looks impossible today in the realms of technology, travel, power generation, medicine, and even church, often becomes common-place tomorrow. But it takes those who are prepared to dream and dare — despite their critics. I’m looking for people who are prepared to dream and dare with me. Our city of Launceston has many fine churches but it is yet to see what the God of the Impossible can do with a church that is prepared to dream and dare. When I read the closing book of the Bible I am captivated by the ‘dream’ of God to see people redeemed from every tribe, nation, and tongue that will eventually comprise a number so vast that no-one could possibly count them! (Rev. 7:9). This is God’s grand dare for the Church and I’m in on the dare! Perhaps we too could dream of a church made up of people from an many nations, tribes, and languages as possible! Perhaps we could dare to dream of a church so significant that hundreds come each Sunday just to find out for themselves what God is doing! And when the day comes — and the day will come — that such a church exists in our city of Launceston, Tasmania, we will remember that there many who said “It couldn’t be done!”

Your pastor,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.