Again I find myself teaching the book to Fusion’s Certificate IV students at a time when I think I need to be hearing what the book is saying.

I love the courage of Ecclesiastes, Solomon (I go with the author the bible wants me to think it is, despite all the discussion about authorship), dares to ask the very scary question does life have any meaning at all?

I came across a quote that I think captures a bit of the importance of the book:

The book goes in two arcs, the first from chapter one to 3:15 and then from 3:16 to the end of the book, in both cases ending in the same place.

I love the way Solomon tries on so many different approaches to life, and finds each one wanting and finally reaches what he considers the point of life:

I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yetno one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.  I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. ¹³ That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. (3:10-13)

This passage comes directly after the beautiful “time for every purpose under heaven” section and captures Solomon’s philosophy. It’s a shame the word “burden” sounds so negative, my understanding is that the Hebrew language is more like “heavy choice”. The choice we have is to find “the beautiful time”, the “time for every purpose under heaven”. The purpose of life is to find a way to harmonize with the creator of the universe. Maurice West said:

“If a man is centred upon himself, the smallest risk is too great for him, because both success and failure can destroy him. If he is centred upon God, then no risk is too great, because success is already guaranteed; the successful union of Creator and creature, beside which everything else is meaningless.”

How is it possible to work out what God wants? There is part of you that knows, and it’s not your head…. “He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

Reading Ecclesiastes is like a reality check. It forces me to examine the foundations of your life and reminds me that I’m not it.

I’m so glad Solomon had the courage to ask the scary questions.

I’ve been thinking a bit about economics lately.

There is something at the heart of our capitalist system that makes me feel a bit uneasy.

I really enjoyed hearing from Dr. Ian Harper at the last arrow residential conference.  He is one of Australia’s most respected economists, and also a Christian.

I asked him a question that I had been thinking about for a while: “Doesn’t capitalism mean the rich will always get richer and the poor will always get poorer”?

His answer? Yes. He also pointed out though that despite a continual polarisation in our economy, the standard of living for the poor has been maintained over the last 20 years through our social security system, so net standard of living hasn’t in fact changed.

I was surprised at his answer but it made sense. Every year Centrelink hands out more and more money to more and more people.

It raises an obvious question: How long will that last? How long will the rich be o.k. with subsidizing the poor?

There is a common philosophy I have heard put forward, particularly by people in the top income bracket, that we should move away from the “nanny state” and people need to be made to stand on their own two feet.

The problem is, most of the people I have met who are wealthy, are wealthy for a range of reasons, not just because they are hard workers.

In his book “outliers”, Malcolm Gladwell points out that the truly successful people are not successful simply because of who they are, they are successful because of the opportunities that were afforded them by the people around them, mostly in their formative years.

Ha-Joon Chang, the author of Twenty-Three things They Don’t tell you about Capitalism says:

Equality of opportunity is not enough. Unless we create an environment where everyone is guaranteed some minimum capabilities through some guarantee of minimum income, education, and healthcare, we cannot say that we have a fair competition. When some people have to run a 100 metre race with sandbags on their legs, the fact that no one is allowed to have a head start does not make the race fair. Equality of opportunity is absolutely necessary but not sufficient in building a genuinely fair and efficient society.

I was struck that ANZ bank laid off 1000 people while recording multi billion dollar profits.

Our system measures our captains of industry, not on whether they made a profit but whether it was suitably larger than last years profit. This can be done in two ways, either by doing more business or by reducing costs. The CEO of ANZ said that business growth was stable so thats why they had to reduce costs.

Now there is 1000 more people dependant on social security, and the money they would have recieved is making its way into the pockets of senior executives in the form of bonusses or institutional investors in the form of dividends.

Something is wrong with the basic premise of all of that.

At what point will the rich decide they are paying too much tax and pull the rug out from under our social security system?

In the bible God introduced a year of Jubilee every 50 years that was designed to redress the balance, unfortunately it seems the Israelites never did it, possibly because those in power would be most disadvantaged.

Just a few ponderings…

I have a dilemma.

For 20 years I have been working with Fusion trying to do Christianity differently, but the more I live with it the more I see the problem is not what we do, its  the way we see things.

I am wading through N.T. Wright’s “Jesus and the Victory of God” and finding it a very helpful theological overview. I was hit by one page, which was meant to be more of a building block in a bigger argument than an insight in its own right.

Wright very simply unpacks how we look at things.

He says:

Worldviews are the lenses through which a society looks at the world, the grid upon which are plotted the multiple experiences of life. Worldviews may be studied in terms of four features: characteristic stories; fundamental symbols; habitual praxis; and a set of questions and answers (who are we? where are we? what’s wrong? what’s the solution? and what time is it?). 

Wright goes on to differentiate between a worldview and a mindset, where a worldview is held collectively and a mindset is held by a particular individual.

Wright points out that:

Worldviews and mindsets generate a set of ‘basic beliefs’ and ‘aims’ which in turn reach day-to-day expression in what I have termed ‘consequent beliefs’ and ‘intentions’.

My book about Kingdom Cells is at a few publishers who are considering taking it on. I really believe what I have written and want to spend the rest of my life helping Kingdom Cells of people bring about lasting change.

I reported a couple of weeks ago a conversation with my wife where I shared my conviction about Kingdom Cells and she retorted “Yeah but the problem is they don’t work”.

At many levels, Leeanne is right, the world is full of well meaning Christians who are doing absolutely nothing of any long term benefit. There are also lots of Christians who say all the right things but don’t seem to do much about it.

One of the truths I have been struggling with for the past couple of years is that just because you want to do something doesn’t mean you will. What really matters is not your intentions but how you actually see the world.

Many of us profess faith in God but our actual belief is in something else: our management systems, or our relationships, or our ability, or our appearance or our family or our intellect.

Ghandi said:

“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.”

Many of us have Christian faith but our belief is in something else, and it shows.

I think I am seeing in new and fresh ways just how confronting and revolutionary Jesus is. He puts forward a whole new world view which subverts the very foundations of all that was normal in his day, and all that is normal in our day.

The revolutionary question is simply: Is Jesus Lord?

Wright says:

We live in a world of new imperialisms. Often they are not like the old imperialisms because they are run by computers, they are run by banks, they are run by businesses…….. What does it mean to say that Jesus is Lord in a world where there are many other Lords that claim that right.

How can we reconcieve of political power if we put Jesus’ Lordship at the top.

Wright and many other scholars are now seeing just how political Paul was. He actively set up counter imperial cells who lived from a different worldview in which Caesar was not Lord:

(The Apostle Paul’s) missionary work must be conceived not simply in terms of a traveling evangelist offering people a new religious experience, but of an ambassador for a king-in-waiting, establishing cells of people loyal to this new king, and ordering their lives according to his story, his symbols, and his praxis, and their minds according to his truth.

I am seeing that if we are not changing the world it is because we believe it’s worldview, no matter what we say our faith is about.

I wrote the book Kingdom Cells because I am convinced we need more revolutionaries.

We need people who are willing to face the assumptions behind their thoughts and re-cast them in the light of the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

I am seeing clearly that we don’t need another manual on how to do church or mission or anything else. What we need are people who will articulate what loving Jesus means in the real world of confusing relationships and ambiguous choices.

I’m hoping this year for me will be about wrestling with some of those questions.

We need people with the courage to live as if Jesus was Lord, and not just to talk about it.

I hope I can have the courage to be one of those people.

Our week away came to an end yesterday and as we tidied the holiday house the kids sat down to watch the Super Bowl. I was fascinated as I came in and out of the room to see what a remarkable production it all was.

One one of the things that stood out to me was the adulation that the quarterbacks and senior coaches were afforded. Every move was dissected and past greats were referenced with hushed tones.

I was left thinking how good Americans are at shaping myth.

The whole event reaffirmed what it meant to be American and much of the time was taken up telling and re-telling stories about mythical heroes.

Americans do heroes well. Their sporting stars, movie stars, political stars and even religious heroes are all larger than life, something more than human.

One of the things l loved about the television showThe West Wing, was the way the President was so deeply respected and almost revered. That really isn’t how we treat our Prime Minister.

I think there is something normal about wanting heroes. I know for much of my life I have kind of hoped to find someone like that… Someone who was more than human who would have all the answers. I actually think most of us are secretly hoping to find someone like that… We never will.

Some fall into the trap of letting people put them on that pedestal and try hard to maintain the facade. As the trashy magazines attest, it rarely works and is never the truth.

Jesus made it clear that we need to be suspicious of anyone who wants to be on a pedestal, or anyone who wants to put us on one.

“Don’t let people do that to you, put you on a pedestal like that. You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates. Don’t set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do. No one else should carry the title of ‘Father’; you have only one Father, and he’s in heaven. And don’t let people maneuver you into taking charge of them. There is only one Life-Leader for you and them—Christ.(Matthew 23:8-10 (MSG))

Are you on a pedestal?

Do you have other people on a pedestal?

There is a flip-side to the pedestal. When you fall people are not so keen to help you back up.

Janet Jackson has never recovered from her “wardrobe malfunction” at the Super Bowl and singer M.I.A. has received a massive backlash for departing from the script during the Madonna halftime show.

A friend was at a Christian music award ceremony where Amy Grant was to receive a lifetime achievement award. Grant had fallen from grace after her marriage fell apart, and my friend recounts his horror as not one person in the room clapped for the woman who had done more than most to create the industry they were all benefitting from.

When you are on the pedestal people can’t imagine reaching your heights and when you are off the pedestal people can’t imagine reaching your depths.

There is only one person who deserves to be there and doesn’t have feet of clay.

Perhaps we need to learn to have more grace for people who succeed and let them be human, and more grace for people who fail, and also let them be human.

I love this week. We are taking it easy at Orford, fishing, swimming, reading, watching movies and reflecting.

As I have been writing, I am in transition. For 20 years I have been working in hands on leadership with Fusion in Australia, and now for the first time I don’t have that responsibility. I am still working towards the goals I committed myself to when I began my work with Fusion, and I am still hoping to help the organisation as much as I can, but it’s right at the moment to pull back and take the time to work out what the next 25 years will be about.

There is a freedom that comes from not having an external agenda but also a loss of security. The loss of security came sharply into focus for me yesterday as I realised that I now need to give my iPhone and iPad back.

It looks too that I won’t be able to keep my phone number which I have had for about 15 years.

Contemplating a life without a mobile phone and the iPad which I have come to rely on, has had a bigger affect on me than I expected.

This morning in my quiet time I read Mark 6:8-9 in the Message

“Don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this. You are the equipment. No special appeals for funds. Keep it simple.

I have also been reading “God Calling”, a collection of reflections for each day by an anonymous couple of women. I haven’t always been so keen on God Calling because it isn’t always based on the bible and in some ways feels a bit like a Christian version of the horoscope. I find thought that God unmistakably speaks to me through it so I have to face some of my prejudice.

Today’s reflection seemed a bit too appropriate:

Just go step by step. My will shall be revealed as you go. You will never cease to be thankful for this time when you felt at peace and trustful, and yet had no human security.

That is the time of the True learning of trust in Me. “When thy Father and Mother forsake thee, then the Lord will take thee up.” This is a literal dependence on Me.

When human support or material help of any kind is removed, then My power can become operative. I cannot teach a man to walk who is trusting to a crutch. Away with your crutch, and My power shall so invigorate you that you shall indeed walk on to victory. Never limit My power. It is limitless.

Sadly, I have to face the fact that my phone and my iPad have become so much a part of my life that they may even be called a crutch. I don’t like to think of it in that way but I am really going to miss both of them.

It feels like God is taking me on a journey to face all the external things that set my agenda so I can really be free. Truth is, I don’t want to be free from some things, but I think that is the point.

It was encouraging today to receive another commendation for the book from a man I admire very much, Tom Hallas.

I will be posting another reflection shortly about what it means to be where I am in life and some of the interesting feelings that are evoked by stepping into new territory and away from the things that help me feel secure.

Along the way it feels like God keeps giving me little encouragements at the moments when I need it most.

The email from Tom today was one such encouragement

“Matt Garvin has had an amazing journey for a young man and he has depth and
vision beyond his years. His passion for every neighborhood to have a
living, loving, freedom-filled, wise action cell of Jesus followers to serve
it, will grip you. His focus on spheres will be as divine guidance for many
whom are passionate to see change in society but, as yet, do not know how to
be involved. His advocation of the legitimization of sodalities
(action-focused communities) will transform pew-sitters who have been
certain there is something more, but have been afraid to step out.”

Tom Hallas
Youth With A Mission
Global Leadership Team (GLT)
Field Director for Asia & the Pacific

We are in Orford having a week away as a family and this morning I received what felt like a little present from God. Two more Christian leaders have reviewed the manuscript for my book and wrote commendations that were very encouraging.

Dr. Joel C. Hunter is the Senior Pastor of one of America’s biggest churches and spiritual advisor to Obama. Moss Ntlha is the General Secretary of the Evangelical Alliance in South Africa and a friend of Fusion over many years.

Their words feel like a squeeze of the hand by God encouraging me to keep going.

“This is an awesome book describing a movement that will save the church from institutionalism and the world from an aloof and out of touch Christianity. The foundational emphases of Kingdom Cells result in a refocus on Christ, a transformed life and an Spirit empowered multiplication of mission teams that truly love one another. I would recommend we read this book and walk it out!”

Dr. Joel C. Hunter, Senior Pastor
Northland – A Church Distributed
Orlando, Florida, USA

“Matt Gavin calls us beyond the rhetoric of Christian theology to a radical commitment and missional obedience. These pages disclose a rare thoughtfulness in holding together a passion to see people come to faith and community transformation. A must read for fellow sojourners looking for “a city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”

Rev Moss Ntlha
General Secretary:
The Evangelical Alliance of South Africa

I’ve been thinking a bit about legacy.

I’m at a point where I am looking back at 20 years in ministry and looking forward at maybe another 25 years and I am asking myself where do I want to be in 2037? Even writing that date seems ridiculous, as thinking about 2012 must have to my Dad when he started Fusion in 1960.

I loved seeing my son Daniel receive his Foundations certificate on Friday. He had done the course for the first time, along with Maddi and Josh and the week had a real impact on them all. Maddi even taught her first unit.

It was a strange feeling for me, sitting up the back and just enjoying the looks on peoples faces at the end of a very busy week, given that I was not involved at all. As I saw the big group huddle together, I thought to myself “Well done Dad.” Dad wrote the first incarnation of the course in 1963 and in 2012 it was still changing peoples lives. Many of them didn’t even know who he was, and yet their lives will be different because of his work.

I came across a Chinese proverb that says:

One generation plants the trees; another gets the shade.

I think many people are benefiting from the shade of the trees planted by my father over the last 50 years.

Someone once told my brother that it takes a “force of nature” to found an organisation of any note, and in many ways that label fits Dad well. He knew what God was asking of him and held on, affecting the lives of thousands and thousands of people.

It is interesting watching Fusion try to move on from the leadership he provided. It certainly hasn’t been an easy journey. I wonder whether the strength of character it takes to be a founder, also means that people don’t know how to relate to you as a person when you no longer have a role in a structure that they can position you in.

I’m reading the book of Job at the moment and was hit this morning at how frustrated Job was with his friends:

“When desperate people give up on God Almighty, their friends, at least, should stick with them. But my brothers are fickle as a gulch in the desert— one day they’re gushing with water From melting ice and snow cascading out of the mountains, But by midsummer they’re dry, gullies baked dry in the sun. Travelers who spot them and go out of their way for a drink end up in a waterless gulch and die of thirst. Merchant caravans from Tema see them and expect water, tourists from Sheba hope for a cool drink. They arrive so confident—but what a disappointment! They get there, and their faces fall! And you, my so-called friends, are no better— there’s nothing to you! One look at a hard scene and you shrink in fear. It’s not as though I asked you for anything— I didn’t ask you for one red cent—Nor did I beg you to go out on a limb for me. So why all this dodging and shuffling? (Job 6:14-23)

I imagine my Dad has felt a little like Job over the past couple of years as many people who related to him in a role don’t seem to know how to connect now.

I’ve found the way relationships change so suddenly a bit disturbing and it raised a lot of questions for me about what counts in the long run.

I think as I saw the group of people who did Foundations and also heard from the students of Fusion’s diploma course, the answer became clearer. What matters is not actually how people feel about you, but how they experience God’s Kingdom as a result of your action.

There is a passage about legacy that I am often reminded about in 1 Corinthians 3:11-15:

For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

So much of what my Dad has done in his more than fifty years of ministry falls into the category of gold, silver or costly stones, and as a result thousands of people continue to experience God’s Kingdom in ways they simply would not have had he not been faithful.

As I look back at the last 20 years I can see that I have made lots of mistakes, but the things of which I am most proud are actually the people I have helped on their own journeys. Many of them are no longer in Fusion but are continuing to make a difference all over the world. I know I have made lots of mistakes, and in the process have hurt lots of people, but I am pleased we are not judged simply by the way we make others feel, but by the times we have held on to what was right.

As I look forward to the next 25 years, I know I want them to count. Wood, hay and straw are cheap but its the gold, silver and costly stones that matter.

Leeanne and I finished painting my shed yesterday and as I sit inside it writing this I realise that it’s hard to communicate the importance of a shed.

This shed was a gift from my wife for my 30th birthday. I was away for a long weekend and she worked with my parents in law to line it and install the massive window.

Two years ago, when we returned to Poatina, my shed was in a bad way. It hadn’t been loved and the floor had rotted.

I am very grateful for my mother-in-law who worked out how to replace the particle board floor with pine floorboards, and for my father-in-law who actually did the work (under the close supervision of my mother-in-law).

I can’t describe the feeling when the furniture went back in, the bookshelves were re-loaded, and I had my space once more.

This shed is not like the shed of more practical blokes. It is full of books and papers and computer bits. It’s walls are covered with photos and artwork and quotes and certificates. If you walked in the door and allowed yourself the time to let your eyes wander over all the bits and pieces crammed into this small space, I think you could tell a lot about me.

Partly the shed is important because its where God and I have conversations. Every morning I stroll outside to my shed no matter what the weather, cappuccino in my hand and enjoy what Daryl Kerrigan called ‘the serenity’. I pull out my journal, my bible and whatever devotional book I happen to be using and read, pray, listen and write. This daily oasis keeps me sane.

The shed is also important because its where I create. I don’t think my book would have happened without my shed. I certainly wouldn’t have the University Graduate Certificate that is hanging on the wall behind me without the space afforded me by my shed and I don’t think my blog would have survived without it.

My shed is also a great place to chat deeply with people, cuppa in hand, with no fear of interruption.

I think Leeanne has a love/hate relationship with the shed. She loves that I have the space and that my books are not cluttering our bedroom, but sometimes gives me a look that says “What are you still doing in the shed, there are other things to do?’, particularly when the kids are out of control. I think there is a part of her that would love a shed too.

There is something important about having the space to be alone with your thoughts. My shed is where that happens.

I find myself in a most frustrating place.

For the first time in 20 years I don’t have direct leadership responsibility. Part of me loves it and another part is going crazy as I see so many things that I think are not being led and for the first time I can’t do anything about it.

It’s one thing to trust God to help you fix something, it’s another thing completely looking on and trusting God to fix it without you. How will he ever manage without me? (I’m only joking in case you didn’t pick it…)

I think I will probably look back on this patch of time as very important in my life, but at the moment, not having answers and not having a way to “fix things” and just having to trust God sucks!

(Very spiritual aren’t I!)

I read these paragraphs in the very helpful book, Leading out of who you are:

The goal of a leader, therefore, must be not only to develop skills in others but to enable others to be willing to lay down their skills. Often this involves the leader inviting people periodically to step down from their leadership roles in order to renew their experience of freedom. I myself believe that all leaders should lay down their roles every five years or so. A period in which we are shorn of our power is good for us and reveals whether we are truly free. This is more than a sabbatical. It should be undertaken on an understanding that the role that that power may not necessarily be taken up again. They should be genuinely let go and handed over. This also ensures that a leader experiences once more what it is like to be led, and to recieve before she gives.

Many good leaders cannot get to this place: it is too painful, it asks too much of them. Their skills remain their own personal possessions.  As such, they remain skills – they cannot become gifts. A gift is something we give away to others, for their benefit, not our own. This means – tragically – that they will always excercise their leadership with a desire to preserve themselves. Of course this is a place where all of us, not only leaders, need to go to be set free. But this is a book about leadership, and it’s worth pointing out that most leaders have more to give up than most people. They are probably leaders by virtue of their skills: their power and training and personality. They lead because people accept their influence. For them it is harder to let go. They have more to lose. However, what they will discover when they do let go is that what they have let go is given back to them once more.

Self-emptying leads to transformation; it leads to empowerment. In my own experience I have found that many of the skills I have possessed that I have also let go have been given back to me, but with a power they did not have before.

I didn’t want to read this and I didn’t want to share it with you, mainly because it names too clearly what I find myself going through at the moment.

I am in a period of letting go and part of me desperately wants to find something to quickly grab on to, but God keeps telling me to relax and enjoy the ride.

I finished the Kingdom Cells manuscript yesterday, which was a great relief. I really feel like the book is important, but even that is now a process of letting go because others now have to take it and organise it in such a way that it is available for people to read.

3 of my kids are doing a course that I would normally be leading, but instead I find myself with the space to pray, write and play golf. It’s a little strange, but I am enjoying the space.

Leeanne and I are going to make a go of more painting and fixing around the house while they do the course. It’s so strange to have the space to do that.

Letting go is a strange thing. Putting yourself on the sidelines while the game still goes on, just doesn’t feel right, but I guess that’s what God was trying to do when he invented the Sabbath.

In August 2010 I wrote a reflection on the Sabbath (read it here) quoting Eugene Peterson who explained why Sabbath is an active act of faith.

I’m starting to wonder whether Life brings periods of Sabbath like the one I am going through at the moment, and the job in moments like this is to actually allow yourself to stop, breathe and reflect. I like how Walker pointed out in Leading Out of Who You Are that it is moments like this you learn whether you are truly free.

As long as I can allow the game to go on without me, and trust that the head coach knows what He is doing, I think this could be one of the best years of my life.