The challenge of change

Dr Bruce Manners
Senior minister
Avondale College Seventh-day Adventist Church

The decision to leave Avondale College Seventh-day Adventist Church has been a difficult one. I began to wonder about my future four months ago when I sensed administering the church was becoming a greater role than pastoring the church. That bothered me.

This is one of the dangers of a large church. Travis, my wife, Margaret, and I’s son—also the minister of a large church—calls it feeding the beast. It’s about working hard to simply keep the wheels turning. That can be frustrating.

Having asked about our future, Margaret and I have spent much time thinking, talking and praying. I’ve spent time talking to a few people (particularly our head elders), including administrators of Avondale College of Higher Education and of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in northern New South Wales.

The most difficult thing about making this decision: I know I have the support (and the desire) for me to continue from most of the church. I don’t leave feeling unloved—the opposite, in fact.

In the end, I made my decision to leave for several reasons, but they can be summed up as my belief that it is best for us and for the church. As you can guess, this church is not an easy one to pastor and it can be all-consuming.

The church is in the midst of significant change. The average age of our year-round congregation has dropped dramatically with an increase in the number of families with children. We’re also gearing up to tackle some core issues I expect will take more years than I have left in ministry. Now is probably the best time to bring in pastoral change.

I leave with warm memories. I leave with few regrets (I didn’t always get it right). And I leave sensing God has used my ministry in significant ways.

As I close the door on this time of ministry, I know what I’m going to miss most. You.

This is Bruce’s last column for Connections. Post your farewells below or on Avondale’s Facebook.

 

Learning from the legacy of Apple’s Steve Jobs

Dr Bruce Manners
Senior minister
Avondale College Seventh-day Adventist Church

“If you live each day as if it were your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” That quote made Steve Jobs focus on what he loved to do.

Jobs, co-founder of Apple and founder of Pixar Animation Studios (think Toy Story), died last week of pancreatic cancer.

In June 2005, he addressed graduating students at Stanford University (Palo Alto, California, USA). He referred to discovering the quote and said, “Since then, for the past 33 years, I’ve looked in the mirror and asked myself, If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I’m about to do today? And whenever the answer has been ‘no’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

This has been his guiding philosophy through a life of highs and lows. He went from working in a garage at 20 to leading a $US2 billion organisation with 4000 employees at 30. Then he was sacked—it was public and highly humiliating.

But it led to “the most creative period of my life.” That’s when he started another computer company, NeXT, and Pixar.

“Sometimes life is going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did.”

Apple bought out NeXT and called Jobs back as chief executive officer to turn a then-failing company around.

By the time of his graduation address, he’d had surgery for pancreatic cancer. Death had become more than a “useful but purely intellectual concept.” “Remembering I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.”

And to help us know how to live before we die.

 

And what would happen if we put all impersonators in one room?

Dr Bruce Manners
Senior minister
Avondale College Seventh-day Adventist Church

If you put all those who claim to be Jesus in one room, what would happen? I suspect three things: there’d be no competition of miracles; there’d be nothing like the depth of thought from the Sermon on the Mount; and they’d shine at making disaster predictions.

If you had all Jesuses in one room and told them they couldn’t come out until they worked out who was the real Jesus, how would they do it? How many would lose their meekness and humility? How many would be diagnosed and taken away in white vans to receive help?

Here’s one conversation recorded when three Jesuses were forced to live together for 15 months in a psychiatric institution (beginning July 1, 1959).

“You oughta worship me, I’ll tell you that!” one of them yelled.

“I will not worship you! You’re a creature! You better live your own life and wake up to the facts!” said another.

“No two men are Jesus Christs. . . . I am the Good Lord!” said the third.

Their story became a book and a film, The Three Christs of Ypsilanti.

There was another Jesus on Channel 7’s Sunday Night, September 18—he’s also known as Alan Miller. At one point, he wrote on his whiteboard, “I’m Jesus, deal with it.” Bizarre.

Asked about miracles in the New Testament, he said something like, “Yes, I did the miracles. No, not the walking on water one, or the turning water into wine.”

He’s living with (could be married to, it wasn’t made clear) a woman who believes she is Mary Magdalene—she is his third Mary Magdalene.

The scary thing: some people believe him. And because he thinks he’s Jesus, there’s no need to refer to the Bible. That’s dangerous.

There is only one real Jesus. He’s all-sufficient.

 

A call to a wild—and Christlike—faithfulness

Dr Bruce Manners
Senior minister
Avondale College Seventh-day Adventist Church

It’s the faith of leap that comes from the leap of faith. That’s what Allan Hirsch and Mike Frost (speaker for Salt in March next year) say is the adventure of living for God.

They reckon, in their latest book, The Faith of Leap, that having taken the leap of saving faith, Jesus’ followers are “required to live with the faith of leap.”

What do they mean? “This is the faith that is willing to leap into service of His unfurling reign in this world, believing that by so doing we are partnering with Him in a cosmic project for the regeneration of all things. . . .”

“We are the people of the ultimate Quest—we are on a wild, and sometimes dangerous, adventure to save the world. This is our story and our song.”

People of the ultimate Quest? This is the call to disciples of Jesus—all disciples of Jesus. It’s “an ongoing, risky, actional, extravagant way of life—a life resonant with the distinctly wild—and yes, Christlike—faithfulness.”

This is about being salt and flavouring the world in Christlike ways. This is like uncovering the light received and letting it shine in dark places (Matthew 5:13-16), or as better explained, it’s for those who have the light “from the Lord” to “live as people of light!” (Ephesians 5:8, NLT).

But there’s more: “To keep our feet on the Adventure, however, will require staying close to our Founder and Leader, who is Himself the Way, the Truth and the Life, the Alpha and Omega.”

Saving faith and living faith, both are incomplete without the other. The leap of faith and the faith of leap—and the ultimate Quest—only make sense when the focus is on Jesus.

Less about natural talent, more about perseverance

Dr Bruce Manners
Senior minister
Avondale College Seventh-day Adventist Church

Australia has a new sporting hero with Sally Pearson’s win in the 100 metres hurdles in Korea on Saturday. It took her only 12.28 seconds from starter’s gun to finish line but 16 years to gain her World Championship gold.

Her journey hasn’t been easy. It began when she was eight years old, when athletics coach Sharon Hannon recognised her talent. Her single mother, Anne, worked several jobs to pay for Sally’s training.

At the age of 14 (2001), Pearson won the Australian under-20 100 metres title. The next year injury interrupted her career. In 2003, she won gold in the 100 metres hurdles at the World Youth Championships in Canada and represented Australia in the four by 100 metres relay team at the World Championships in Paris.

At the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Pearson tripped over a hurdle and fell during the 100 metres final. During the 2009 World Championships, pain from back spasms impaired her run in the finals—she came fifth.

Most of us probably first noticed her when she won silver at the 2008 Olympic Games. Her excitement and joy? Obvious and replayed time and again on television.

At last year’s Commonwealth Games, Pearson won the 100 metres and the 100 metres hurdles finals but lost the former after a protest (she’d been permitted to run after a false start). Then she collapsed after the four by 100 metres, distraught she may have let the team down when it placed fifth.

It’s obvious Pearson’s world championship win is less about her natural talent and more about her perseverance. That’s the lesson. Few things come without effort.

Whatever race you’re running will take dogged effort to win. It’s worth it, though, just ask Sally Pearson.