Bringing them with us to 10%:
Persuading our majority regulars toward the Diocesan goal.

Keynote address by the Rev Andrew Cameron
at the Anglican Church League Annual General Meeting
15 August 2002

To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ's sufferings and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed: Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, serving as overseers—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away. (1 Peter 5:1-4, NIV)

I’d like to begin tonight be thanking Zac Veron for inviting me to speak to you, and also to say what a privilege it is to be here. These are more than mere polite formalities. Having had the opportunity to live away from Sydney for the first time in my life, three and a half years in England have impressed upon me the enormous significance of what the Lord is doing in Sydney. There remains some aspects of what we do that could be different, of course; but nevertheless, through the hard work of many and under the power of God’s Spirit, there are many aspects of our life together which rightly draw from us thanks and praise to the Father. I didn’t see this before I left. I see it clearly now.

I must also confess to a slight hesitation in having that text read to you tonight. The hesitation probably says more about me than about you; but I am aware that it is a text that many here will already have pondered deeply, and for whom it represents a bedrock statement by God about what it is that we do. I bring it out of no sense that it needs to be brought, except insofar as God himself would always have us to remember Peter’s appeal.

What I have to say tonight will not exactly be an exposition of that text, but rather a series of hunches, ideas and tips that I hope will be of assistance. However that passage will certainly serve to sharpen these thoughts.

I thought it might be interesting to talk about “Taking them with us to 10%”. That is, how do we persuade our majority regulars toward the Diocesan goal? I’ll begin by reminding us of the Diocesan goal, and then I will say who I have in mind by this term ‘majority regulars’ and why they require a pause for thought. Finally I will submit some suggestions for helping this group forward toward the goal. Whether or not these suggestions are the right ones, my fervent hope is that by them, we will together be stimulated into new and helpful ways forward.

It seems to me that with the right kind of push we can make enormous headway toward that goal in the next five years, remembering too that headway toward that goal will have wonderful, immeasurable spin off effects for the cause of Christ around the globe.

2. What?

By the Diocesan goal, I refer to what the Archbishop charged us with repeatedly during 2001:

to aim in the next decade to have at least 10% of the population who are committed, equipped and bold to speak in the name of Christ.

I was not in Sydney at this time, but imagine our excitement after three years in England and then hearing an Anglican bishop saying such things,

Of course on its own, such a numerical utterance might have been crass. But then we learnt that this was an expression of something else: for God to be glorified as we “proclaim[ed] our Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ in prayerful dependence on the Holy Spirit”. The extra 9% above our existing 1% of the populace are to be a people who “hear his call to repent,” who “trust and serve Christ in love,” and who are “established in the fellowship of his disciples while they await his return.” My excitement increased: here, apparently, is a charge from an Anglican bishop who knows of that same “glory to be revealed” of which another Peter spoke.

This then is hardly church growth for growth’s sake. It is the kind of thing that happens when we just want more and more people to enjoy, say, a wedding, or a party. It is our way of saying that Jesus Christ is so worth knowing that we want to make as many introductions to him as we can, and then watch while inevitably, thousands of people begin to grow into the knowledge of him.

3. Who?

As I pondered this, it was easy to imagine a bunch of people in every church I have ever been a part of who would be with the Archbishop in this. Sometimes we call this each church’s ‘core’ group, or some such name. The name doesn’t matter, of course; but you will probably know someone who fits the bill: they’ve done some theological training, they work alongside you in many capacities, and they dearly want people to know Jesus.

But this is not the group I mean when I refer to ‘our majority regulars’. Thinking of “God's flock that is under our care”, there are sheep perhaps that we know less well, always in the fold, as it were, but a little more timid than some. A little too easy to miss among all the others in the flock.

I have in mind that echelon of committed regular believers who attend no Club 5s, read no Briefings, know little or nothing of Moore College and who struggle to put all the theological pieces together with their life. Many of these people have not had, or have not continued to have, a tertiary education. While they may be a Synod member or parish council member, they will more probably have no knowledge of either, let alone of a Standing Committee or an ACL.

These are people who usually find it difficult to distinguish the different theological ‘flavours’ of Anglicanism which we take for granted, so that it brings them great pain to hear of Anglicans in disagreement, let alone in open conflict over the basic truths of the faith. The term ‘evangelical’ is usually take to mean ‘evangelistic’ by them. They attend conventions intermittently, if at all. Their knowledge of the Bible is extensive, but fragmentary, and with little systematic or biblical framework joining it together.

But they know for certain that they follow Jesus, and they are much more than fringe-dwellers. Advances in the Kingdom excite them; they want to follow Jesus better; and they are not particularly fragile in their faith.

I’m no statistician, so forgive me any glaring errors here; but let’s assume our regular attenders number, say, 60,000. (I base this on the year book’s average weekly attendance in 2000 of about 40,000, and on the fact that usually only about two thirds of regulars are present on most Sundays.) Of these, I have in mind a group of, say, 15-25,000 people. They come more often than not; you like them, you can depend upon them for many things, and they are not particularly hostile about anything.

I want to raise how we might serve these people better, for two reasons. Firstly, this group is by far the most important group to mobilise if this goal has a chance of proceeding. And secondly, in proceeding towards the Diocesan goal, this group will quickly balloon in size. Not to carry them with us will fatally compromise our growth. How, then, can we willingly serve this group as “overseers” of them?

The risk before me is that to speak of how better to serve these people risks suggesting that we are currently ill-serving them. But that’s a judgment only the Chief Shepherd is competent to make, and certainly not me. Indeed, something must be going right for them to be as much a part of the “flock” as already they are.

Rather, after various experiences with such people, I want simply to observe some areas for our attention.

4. Their needs?

I have a list of nine areas that are relevance to this group. There is always the danger with such a list of that heaviness which sets in when a task is outlined, and which can be magnified by your own inner cry ‘but I am already working on these things!’ and ‘I can do no more!’ I know that, of course. But I hope that by naming these things, we can experience a renewed sense of partnership in our existing efforts, then to find new ways and means forward together.

a) A recognition of aporia (gaps, chasms, inconsistencies).

I think we need to start with the deep recognition that many people in churches are very troubled by aporia in their faith which they cannot close. These aporia hold them back from the work of ministry: they cannot proceed with us in work toward the goal while these remain.

I think it comes out it various ways. It is hard for them to see, for example, how it is that God’s word can take an enscripturated form (although a certain new archiepiscopal publication may be of assistance here!). I also encounter deep misgivings about the Old Testament within this group, particularly surrounding its morality. Or the historicity of the New Testament might be a problem to them. Their understanding of the necessity for the work of Christ, and the nature of its efficacy, leaves them a bit lost.

Recently, and after much careful research, a friend of mine held a special night explaining the different dispensational approaches to the Bible and explaining why he holds to a coventantal approach in his biblical theology. It struck me how unusual this was, and made me wonder how much we assume, theologically speaking, about our people.

I wonder then (and without knowing anything at all about your current teaching strategies) if there is a place for more overtly theological preaching among us, seeking to knit together the component parts of Scripture into a theological whole. I wonder too if we can invent more of the kinds of open fora such as my friend invented, were people can gather to hammer out theological questions more deeply than they can in the Sunday meeting. This kind of thing is already on the rise, of course, and I could point to people here with great ideas. Perhaps we could share them informally.

b) Re-persuasion about lordship of Christ.

I need particularly to highlight one aspect of Christian theology, and to ask about our teaching strategies pertaining to it.
One of my colleagues reports that as he travels around the diocese speaking on mission to church groups, there is consternation in the faces of many to whom he speaks. The consternation appears when the claim is made that all people need a saving knowledge of the Lord Christ.

Of course, I am sure we have asserted this claim often enough in our preaching and teaching. But among the group of which I speak, these assertions are not always translated into real persuasion.

The obstacles to their persuasion are many. For the post-Enlightenment West, there is a deep scandal in the ‘particular’, and our people are Enlightenment people insofar as they are convinced that the universal trumps the particular. That is, for modern thought it is deeply unreasonable to claim that a particular—in this case, the man Jesus Christ—has applicability universally. (One of Paul's strategies here is to contrast humanity ‘in Adam’ against the new humanity ‘in Christ’; however this is perceived to be undermined where there is no engagement with evolutionary accounts which seem conceptually to sideline Adam.)

So, the first of two shameless plugs: the forthcoming Moore Theological College School of Theology, entitled “The Universal Lordship of Christ in a Pluralistic World”, 18th-19th September 2002 (ph. 9577-9911) should be of assistance here and I commend it to you.

c) An apologetic (i.e. a defence) for the current position on women’s ministry.

As a collective, our political process has arrived at a position on the matter of women’s ministry the watching world finds difficult to accept. Something like the following is representative:

As Archbishop Peter Jensen rushes back to the past, with his continued refusal to ordain women to the priesthood reeking of misogyny (Herald, August 7), I look forward to observing how he proposes to achieve his expressed desire to greatly increase his Anglican flock while refusing to acknowledge the existence of half of it. Maybe the good Archbishop really does believe in miracles.
Bill Carpenter, Bowral, August 7. [SMH August 8th]

The vitriol is discomforting, and I am not about to move from it to a call to re-evaluate the question. Without boring you with my own position, suffice to say that I would defend the Archbishop’s stance. But I raise this matter because again and again, I find that the first line of apologetic engagement over the validity of Christianity often concerns this stance on women’s ministry. Letters like Mr. Carpenter’s loom large in the non-Christian populace; and I believe the majority regulars of which I speak remain unclear about this stance.

I wonder then if we can search together for an apologetic defence of that position which is clear, straightforward and which can be owned by many of us, even including those who would not finally defend the Archbishop’s position. That is, in the best case scenario, can we find an apologetic to explain our current practise which could even be heard graciously upon the lips of those who do not agree with it.

The apologetic I have in mind would be a summary to make the position intelligible to the watching world, an apologetic which redirects their attention to Christ, and which makes possible a return to Christ and fellowship in our churches even for many ardent defenders of women’s rights.

Would such an apologetic necessarily be impossible, or disingenuous? I am more optimistic. Perhaps with the right kinds of discussions between biblically minded men and women, we can arrive at a place where the Diocesan position is explicable in accessible and biblical terms.

In fact I believe that our text contains the seeds of this apologetic. In v3, Peter explicitly remembers his Lord’s own ethic of power—that in this kingdom, power is used to serve, not to dominate. We know both through the scriptures and by popular agreement that men—perhaps because they are often physically stronger than women—tend naturally to be abusive and dominating in their uses of power. What better way, then, for God to bear continual witness against this sinful aspect of men, than by inserting men who lead by shepherd-like service into the argy bargy of human affairs? Indeed, the very effectiveness of God’s provision here is attested by the popular send-up of the male cleric as weak, etc. Perhaps this is exactly what we should expect from a world which stands accused in its celebration of lordly power. But God’s critique of abusive male power is lost wherever the church’s main leader is female, just as it is subverted by clerics who become lordly.

These are matters for further discussion, of course. Moreover there is no censorship here; some will never be able to take any apologetic upon their lips. But we work towards a Diocesan goal within a limitation about who may lead churches, so we need persuasively to show why we think this is a liveable and helpful stance.

d) An apologetic about our ethic of sexuality and family.

God calls people to a life of marriage, for many things; or a life of singleness, for many other things; and sex is for marriage. This simple summary generates a clear set of objections in our community, but it remains an elegant and defensible appraisal of the best way for relationships in a society to prosper.

Pastors need to be better resourced to defend this ethic against secular disagreements, and work as already begun toward that end. Different kinds of resources are needed to encourage and strengthen this ethic in congregational life, and others are working on this too. For the time being I simply flag this as another area that the majority regulars find difficult to defend, but it is to extensive to say much more about tonight.

e) A defence of our political process.

I find many people angry and cynical about the mere existence of a political process in our diocese. There is for some a basic, albeit unthinking, perception that Christian communities should somehow be above the necessity of a political process. Sadly, we do not understand how it is that the founders of our political process understood that a parliamentary model is adaptable to Christian needs (given also the debt to Christian theology within which the English Parliament itself was first grounded).

There are clear differences in the tone and manner of Synodical parliament against that of the Macquarie Street ‘bear pit’. But somewhat unfairly perhaps, for some majority regulars their first dawning awareness of the Synod equals their first horrified discoveries about parliamentary process in general. Hence they are hurt to think of Christians standing in this kind of relationship one to another.

Sadly it is difficult to educate people about this without the discussion being freighted by those matters where disputants did not get the result they wanted. When a decision goes against me, my first impulse will always be to blame the process itself as flawed. The hard task before us is to enable people to reflect upon the legitimacy of a Synod (and the difficulty of alternatives) as a discussion in itself.

There will always be an ongoing discussion about any political process, questioning the forms and assumptions which give it shape, and may this discussion ever continue with reference to the Synod just as with reference to our Federal government, since all human organisation is in principal up for reform. Nevertheless, there remains a place for a humble, provisional defence of our current arrangements.

Of course it goes without saying that in order for this defence to be disingenuous, each participant in a Synodical process must act as an under-Shepherd of the Chief Shepherd, and as “examples to the flock”. His Lordship curbs the use of lies, the breaking of promises, the betrayal of confidences and the use of Synod as a vehicle for settling matters that should have been settled using, say, the process of Matthew 18.

As Australians, our desire to get a result particularly predisposes us to a kind of consequentialist thinking where even the gospel is used to justify ungodly treatment of others. I am not privy to any examples of this; my doctrine of our falleness simply warns me of its likelihood, and I simply pause to observe it as an ever-present exhortation: our education about the Synod will be fatally compromised if not backed by the highest standards of personal integrity.

Why does this matter to me? Because often enough, I meet people who are in a state of actual existential turmoil at the core of their faith by what they perceive as the disappointing behaviours of their leaders in the Synodical arena. Again, I am not privy to the truth or falsehood of this and offer no judgment. My point is that we can do better than merely to blame the conflict-driven strictures of journalism for this perception. We can embark upon a process of open education, trying ever so hard not to freight that process with our own disappointments about decisions that have not gone our own way, though perhaps at the same time being honest about the difficulties and temptations that are upon such a people as they engage together in this political way.

f) A renovation of discourse re the Christian life.

May I speak of another, more delicate matter that I often hear from majority regulars. It is delicate, because it relates in part to our preaching.

We are not always giving people a coherent understanding on how they might live the Christian life. The problem is easy enough to see. For some people, the various applications of the various sermons they have heard over the years combine together as a cacophony of conflicting inner voices, rather than as a coherent view of the Christian life. That is, our applications are not always being guided by an overall picture of what kinds of people we hope for Christians to become. (The matter is confounded by our own ongoing spiritual growth, since we teachers are also learning what kind of persons to become.)

In this connection, we can note with interest that Peter’s exhortation includes the same kind of logic as the Pastorals, where shepherds are “not greedy for money, but eager to serve” and are “examples to the flock.” Sometimes it is hard for the majority regulars to understand how to live, since they are not able to get close enough through the crowd of sheep to watch their shepherd’s good example—to watch, as it were, how their overseer weaves his theology into his life.

Therefore I keep meeting Christian people for whom a barrenness in their lives comes from a lack of Christian wisdom. People who don’t know how to proceed through conflict in their marriage. People for whom singleness feels unliveable. People who do not know how the Lordship of Christ is to inform or challenge or change the structures of their working life.

Certainly we must avoid any return to the fatuous moralism of decades long past. Indeed, the concentration we have seen in the past four decades to give leaders an understanding of biblical theology and of the Lordship of Christ was crucial and strategically unavoidable. I am simply proposing that we now have in place exactly the sort of rich theological resources to make more sense of matters of everyday ethics.

These matters of everyday ethics are arguably more important than matters of ‘high level’ ethics. No one can see the preciousness of an embryo if they haven’t seen the preciousness of others; and they will not be seeing the preciousness of others if they think they have to tell lies at their workplace in order to survive there and so feed their family, or if they have reached such a state of painful staleness with their husband or wife, that life at home is mere survival. That is, by renovating our discourse about the Christian life, I believe we will then be better positioned to make sense on embryos, refugees, drug laws, political policy and all of those more massive issues where we feel we have lost our voice.

To this end, I offer my second shameless plug. The 2003 College of Preachers will consider how we might go about bringing an ethical framework to our people.

g) A life beyond ‘survival’

This point is perhaps an extension of the last. In the course of our ministries, so many of us know people for whom life is merely a project of ‘survival’. Week by week they join us, perhaps occasionally, and are preoccupied by an overwhelming sense of the enormity of their daily concerns. Rightly we care for them, and no account of the diocesan mission would be Christian if it involved leaving such people bobbing in our wake as hindrances to some greater cause. We know well that the cosmos is fallen, life beyond Eden takes place among thorns and thistles, and God’s insertion of loving communities around Jesus the best hope for such people until they find all things renewed on the last day.

But I also see in the NT a greater expectation of joy, of spontaneous thanksgiving, of contentment, than we have perhaps put before people. I do not mean we should put these things before people in the mode of a command, as if they ‘should’ be joyful, or thankful, or content. In the nature of this case, ‘should’ doesn’t touch the matter.

Of the needs I have outlined, this is the most difficult to address and potentially the most woolly and frustrating. However I believe it is among the most important, not least because the problem is possibly sharpest for people in ministry. The absence of joy is the most mystifying of all when it takes place within ourselves—that sometimes, we who are charged with proclamation to the world find ourselves deep within the Psalmist’s pit, waiting patiently or even impatiently upon the Lord to do that strange miracle of giving joy. It is during such times that Peter’s “willingness” and “eagerness” is furthest away, and “the crown of glory that will never fade” seems very dim indeed.

I suspect that answers to this lie somewhere within a two-sided reappraisal.

On the one hand, I would love to see biblical work amongst us on how it is that Bible writers look forward to joy and promote rejoicing, yet doing so without being Arminian or Pelagian or triumphalist, and in full knowledge of the times we live in. I believe we have something more to learn here, and that after such research we leaders will more and more become the people of joy, thanksgiving and contentment that our people long to see and learn from.

The other hand of the twin reappraisal will be the right kind of critique of the structures of modern life. It seems to me that Australia is a collection of angry-making, despair-producing, conflict-driven structures which are ultimately unliveable; and that our national myth of easy-going, fun-loving tolerance is a tense and thin veneer which is enforced upon the face of that. ‘Anyone who cannot enjoy themselves in Australia, is a tool’, declared Rob Sitch on The Panel a couple of years ago.

Note the level of enforcing threat in that apparently jovial statement. While in Caringbah, it always saddened me to hear the enforced declaration that ‘this is God’s country’, against the highest levels of youth suicide, eating disorders and mental illness that I have ever seen anywhere.

It seems to me that the right kinds of sustained critique can begin to free people from these structures. By ‘critique’ I have in mind that mode of engagement that white-ants the matter from within. By ‘right kind’ of critique I have in mind an approach to evil which knows of its fragility against the lordship of Christ.

For example, I have taken to observing how much more relaxed I am without a television in my life. This device is offered to me for ‘relaxation’; yet I find that without it, I am freed from artificially generated desire (advertising) and the need to arrange my life around specific moments of entertainment (Buffy, Monday 10:30). Even one of my children, unbidden, declared that she feels ‘all free’ without a television in her life. This is a critique of a central element on modern Australian life.

(Digression: Monkeys are trapped by placing an apple in a narrow-necked bottle. The monkey grasps the apple, then cannot withdraw its fist from the bottle. If it let go of the apple, it could escape; but it doesn’t. We are like this: the television set is the bottle, and its programs are the apple. The only difference between us and monkeys is that we pay $900 for our ‘bottle’, and then park it as centrally as we can within our families.)

But this has to be the ‘right kind’ of critique. I endeavour to make it under the aegis of Christian liberty. That you have a television is akin to your choice of foods, and I may yet reacquire one. Hence my critique is not of the tense and angry kind often associated with evangelical Christianity, where by drawing upon a dualistic conception of evil, I declare television intrinsically to be evil. This would be the wrong kind of critique: angry, suspicious, and ultimately more fearful of evil than confident in Christ.

Of course there are more important structures than television: enslavements to work, body-image, merit, efficiency, leisure and even family—each of these are Enlightenment and modernist products which all deserve the right kind of critique. When our people at first hear, then enthusiastically take upon their own lips, this right kind of critique, then we shall know that the way has been opened for them toward joy, contentment and thanksgiving.

h) Acknowledging suspicion

I think we do well to notice the effect, and to feel the weight, of arguments put against Christian churches by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900).

In his Genealogy of Morality Nietzsche presents what amounts to an awful parody of Peter’s exhortation. Nietzsche also speaks of the ‘priest’ as a kind of shepherd who has a herd of sickly sheep. These sheep are sickly because they are convinced by the shepherd of their sinfulness, and because they live in a form of seething resentment against those who are rich and strong, beyond the herd. By harnessing this resentment, and by keeping the sheep just sick enough to be dependent and offering just enough balms to keep them return, “this strange shepherd” maintain power and control over his herd, for his own ends.

I mention this to observe, firstly, the force of this argument in the modern psyche. Certainly many non-Christians believe that something like this is the case; and sadly, I suspect that many of our majority regulars are suspicious of the ‘power’ held by ‘shepherds’ over their flock.

I also mention it, secondly, to feel the weight of the argument. For we play right into Nietzsche’s hands when as leaders of God’s people we do not experience a real joy at seeing each other and realising that Christ has worked miraculously in the other. Any hint that we vie for supremacy over each other; any whisper that we take pride in our own successes against those of the ministry nearby—this will make it seem to majority regulars that Nietzsche was right all along.

Of course that which Peter urges us toward remains a powerful counterpoint to Nietzsche. Shepherds who grasp Christ’s sufferings, and the glory to be revealed can overflow with the kind of eager service that puts the lie to Nietzsche’s claims.

There is a teaching point somewhere in here which modern people need to wrestle with. Is power always only for domination of others? Many people believe so, and if this is the case, then Peter’s exhortation becomes read as one sickly shepherd to another on how to consolidate power. On this view, every human transaction is an exercise of power, and all uses of power are suspicious. On this view, we are right to direct our most suspicious suspicion toward anyone in a position of authority.

But perhaps this is just wrong. Perhaps there are lots of ways in which my power—that is, my ability to act in the world—sets the conditions under which the life of others can prosper. This, I think, is what Peter means by service. Indeed Nietzsche suddenly overreaches himself when he considers those times when church life exploded with joy in the gospel. (He even mentions Martin Luther’s discovery of marriage here.) Although Nietzsche tries, his rhetoric fails to hide that the rock upon which his account founders, is joyful churches humbly led by willing, eager servants.

When our majority regulars find that they inhabit this kind of church, our voice against Nietzsche is at its strongest and most persuasive. The church like this is, of course, the church of the Chief Shepherd who is soon to appear.

i) Writing, writing, writing

I had a chance last week to write something for a newspaper. It was all a bit of an accident, and I’ll refer you to the Southern Cross website if you want the details (http://www.anglicanmediasydney.asn.au/socialissues/features/ac_SMH.htm). But the experience reminded me of the obvious.

Borrowing some of the technical jargon of shepherdry, the wolves who devour our majority regulars at the moment are actually not wolves at all, but are other shepherdless sheep. Of course one sheep cannot really devour another, unless the devoured sheep is somehow tricked into thinking it has been devoured. By shepherdless sheep I refer to those who like to think that a free society, with freedom of speech, among relatively merciful judges and police, in comparative peace and harmony and generally free of corruption, can be had without reference to Christian thought. Modern liberal thought strenuously denies its historic dependence upon Christian thought, and therefore upon God himself. But it is not too hard to show that without reference to God’s revelation in Christ and the Scriptures, Western liberalism just floats upon assertions of its own making. (In an odd sense, we are friends of the best aspects of liberalism.)

Yet too many of our majority regulars think that secular thought trumps Christian thought, even if they are not sure why.
This misconception can be met when overseers like ourselves are seen to be writing, writing and writing. We might be an overeducated lot, but this makes us good for at least this one thing. By writing to local and city newspapers, for school newsletters, even perhaps on fliers and papers we do ourselves, we will both build relationship with outsiders and show our majority regulars how Christian thought is not just able to fend for itself, but can actually decode much of what we see around us.

Therefore I have been sobered and amazed at the number of people for whom my little bit of writing was brought inordinate encouragement to them. So much so that I now don’t mind if things I write don’t get to appear. They’ll probably be useful somewhere someday, and statistically, the more we write, the more of it will appear here and there.

5. Crossing the chasm

Someone has told me that marketers think of people as being divided into groups between whom a kind of chasm exists. The groups, and their chasm, represent difference mindsets.

By and large, we belong in a minority group, for whom the Bible is a whole, the gospel’s relevance to everyday ethics is obvious, and who don’t always get why others would not run toward the Archbishop’s goal with ease. We shepherds are a bit like pioneers, and the sheep like settlers. Pioneers can get impatient when settlers won’t come with them. But by leading others into the woods and proving that the woods aren’t that dangerous, the pioneers can show that settlers can easily come too.

I have been flirting with other ways of bringing them with us.

· I wonder if we can share more of our events with each other. Your church is having a night on stem cells or friendship or the Lordship of Christ … do you habitually invite the three churches nearby? What could be a cheaper and easier way of maximising our efforts and growing our bonds of friendship.

· I wonder if we can form educational think groups. For example, a group might meet for four weeks to hammer out their understanding of embryonic research, or the relationship between the testaments, or how patience works in the Christian life.

· Many majority regulars adore magazines. I did a magazine for a while as a pilot project, deliberately targeted toward the non-tertiary educated, and received much positive feedback. Would some of us work together to do such a thing again, on the kinds of things I have raised tonight, and for people who feel nervous about learning?

· I wonder if we can think of different uses for more uses for Moore College. (Moore Uses, so to speak.) Of course that’s a bigger question, but again, I would like to think that there is something the College can do to help the majority regulars.

Perhaps my nine areas have not been helpful tonight; perhaps you can think of nine more. But I hope that I have at least stimulated you again to think of those majority regulars, and the chasm that can be jumped by working within their particular mindset and concerns. There are those here who have been doing that many years longer than me, and who should probably have delivered this talk. Let’s make sure as we talk together that we learn and grow in kind, patient ways of bringing them with us towards that ten percent.

If you think of some other areas which will help “majority regulars”, email them to Andrew.Cameron@moore.edu.au. Some responses can be found here.

The Rev. Andrew Cameron lectures in Ethics at Moore Theological College in Sydney.

 

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