Andrew Turner Archives - Tasmanian Baptists

An Easter Exercise

*Exscribo Divina

SACRED AGENTS is a blog by Andrew Turner, Director of Crossover

Ten or twelve years ago, while chatting socially with a woman who worked as a psychologist, I mentioned rather sheepishly that I had a fear of flying. “You should come and see me,” she said, “I can help with that.” Before I could deflect, she added, “You know, often it’s associated with a childhood trauma. Were you in an accident when you were young?”

Indeed I was. Intrigued, I asked what could be done, and to her financial detriment she just said, “Well, come and see me if you like. But you might find that just having had this conversation will have helped.” What? A passing conversation of all of two minutes?

But then the strangest thing happened. When I next flew – some weeks later – the fear was just gone. I am still absolutely amazed by this, that just a few words can have such power, power beyond argument or persuasion or logic. It’s like she had spoken directly to my nervous system.

It’s time to get your pen and notebook!

If you’ve been following Jesus for a while, Easter can be a little strange. We celebrate the heart of the good news, but it doesn’t seem like news anymore. We know how it goes. God bless all the preachers stretching their heads to come up with a fresh angle on this old story! But Easter can just come and go, if we let it.

So here’s a little exercise I’ve found helpful to keep the heart from dozing: Copy out Mark 14-16 and Isaiah 53. Copying Scripture* is slow.

Slow enough that sure, I notice little things I hadn’t considered so much before. But it’s not about that – it’s about letting the words hit me in a different way. I’ve just been immersing myself in the wonder of it all. Opening myself up to “just having had this conversation” with God.

Making a difference

My intention here isn’t to know more. Perhaps it’s to know better or deeper. My fear of flying wasn’t logical, and it wasn’t fixed by following logical steps. I did get information, but strangely sideways, so that it got deep enough in me to make a genuine difference.

This is not just something we can do for ourselves, but with others too.

Perhaps there’s someone in your life who’d be willing just to read through it with you? Not for analysis or explanation or even persuasion – you might find there’s other powerful ways that God works his healing magic both in and through you.

Andrew Turner is Director of Crossover for Australian Baptist Ministries.Crossover exists to Help Australian Baptists Share Jesus.

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*You can call it Exscribo Divina if the people you’re trying to impress only speak Latin.

Census and Sensibility

By Andrew Turner, Director of Crossover, helping Australian Baptists share Jesus

I know most of you don’t love statistics as much as I do, probably 98.841% of you with a margin of error of … WAIT! Don’t switch off. The recent Australian Census data is important. Let me try to translate the number columns into a meaningful story.

Some results were not that surprising. Turns out we’re all five years older than we were at the last census five years ago. Over that time the Australian population grew 8.6% (1.5% per year) to 25.4 million. Half of that growth came from migration. Ask your parents where the other half came from. Speaking of which, did you know nearly 50% of us have a parent born overseas? Oh, and that Millennials have totally taken over as largest age demographic? LOL. Eye-roll emoji.

But it was the Religious Affiliation data that surprised many. The proportion of Aussies who claim to be Christian dropped sharply, from 52% to 44% (in 2011 it was 61%). At the same time, those who ticked ‘No Religion’ rose from 30% to 39%. This represents two million nominal Christians no longer claiming to be what they don’t practice.

Most of us would see this as a rise in honesty – don’t claim to be a musician if you don’t play an instrument. But if it’s a shift from ‘I’m a lazy musician who hardly ever practices’ to ‘I’m no musician and selling my trumpet’, it is a loss and a grief.

Uneven Spread

The drop-off from those claiming Christianity was not spread evenly across denominations. Anglicans especially, but Catholics, Uniting, Presbyterians, Lutherans and Salvos had very significant reductions. Pentecostals and Churches of Christ fell a little. And Baptists actually grew – by 2,192 – small falls in most states were more than offset by a jump of 4,500 in Victoria. Go BUV!

The generation that is least ‘Christian’ (31%) and most ‘No Religion’ (47%) are those millennials, now aged 26-40. But this may be more about life-stage than generation; young adults often do a prodigal walkabout before returning to faith. Let’s be sure to welcome them.

So what’s the story? What might God be saying to us and what might we do with all this?

Firstly, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

CONTINUE READING Andrew Turner’s blog, Sacred Agents: Census and Sensibility >

Andrew Turner is the Director of Crossover for Australian Baptist Ministries and author of Fruitful Church and Taking the Plunge: Baptism and Belonging to Jesus.
Andrew recently completed a Leadership Review of Tasmanian Baptists, with results soon to be tabled.

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An Easter Exercise