Richard Dawson, 6 February 2016

Welcome! We’re in that part of the year when we see more newcomers than at any other time. Knowing how crucial first impressions are when we are meeting individuals we must realise that this applies to communities of people and institutions as well. A negative experience first up with a group of people can leave one with a pretty bad taste for some time. Our Mission Focus this year at Leith is to ‘seek to grow in our ability to intentionally build welcoming, hospitable and generous relationships with other people...’ And we’ve set ourselves this task because mission is essentially relational—it’s about forming relationships which are shaped and formed by the Christ who lives within us. There are many facets of this work. We need to work at times on our language, our listening skills, our facial expressions, our conversational skills and even our basic courage. We may also need to take this a step further and begin to open our homes to strangers and newcomers. A simple meal of soup and bread can make such a difference to a lonely student or a new family in the city. The offer of a coffee sometime during the week simply to provide someone to talk to and share with can be a life-saver to a visitor. There are literally dozens of ways we can improve our ability to intentionally become more welcoming. And this will make a difference to Leith. We can preach all we like about the love of Christ but until it becomes real in us our words will fall on deaf ears. Can I challenge you to pray about this and to ask God to deal with your heart if you find this difficult or even impossible. We need to build our relational capacity this year both as individuals and as a church. This doesn’t need to overwhelm us. Perhaps simply forming the habit of talk to one person for 5 minutes at church whom you would not normally associate with might be a great start!

Richard Dawson, 3 February 2016

I know of several people I’ve met recently who’ve used the principle of the ‘New Year’s Resolution’ to get some part of their lives ‘on track’ this year. Whether it be breaking a bad habit, getting fit, losing weight or simply staying focused, committing to something, making a promise to oneself and telling others about it is perhaps one of the most used and sometimes abused ways of getting started. And, frankly, it’s often quite helpful. I suspect we over-emphasise the idea of commitment in the Christian community at times but there’s no doubting the need to determine godly priorities for our lives if we want to be followers of Jesus. In the end, commitment in a Christian context simply boils down to a decision to go one way or another—to follow Christ or not to. And this then leads to making changes in other parts of our lives. An alcoholic may commit to being dry but that decision then has to apply to each moment and each circumstance of their lives if it is to make a difference. In a similar manner, we may commit to making Christ LORD of our life but that will then need to apply ‘down the line’ to decisions about money, relationships and time.
Can I, then, challenge you this year to determine to let Jesus in ‘down the line.’ Perhaps you’ve been a Christian for many years but never really asked God about how that should effect what you spend your time on—how much TV you watch; how much time you spend with the family. Perhaps you’ve never allowed God to speak into your key relationships—never asked God to be Lord of that part of your life. Commitment to Christ means commitment in these areas as well. Finally, I wonder if you’ve committed what you earn to God or are we still lords in that area? Yes you worked hard for that money but it is the gifts God gave you which enabled you to do that. Commit everything to God this year. Don’t hold back!

Richard Dawson, 6 January 2016

I don’t know about you but the more I read about the future the less enthusiastic I am to get there. From global over-heating to national over-eating everything seems rather gloomy if you read the newspaper at all. Old people seem worried about how young people are behaving and young people don’t seem to like the world the old people made. Many think oil is bad but the other half don’t want wind mills for increased electricity production either. In the words of an old English sit-com—’We’re a rum lot really aren’t we!’ (Trans. ‘The human race is silly’) ‘Rum’ we may be but the future need not be nearly so dark. One of the great things about the Christian faith is that it places the future firmly in God’s hands and by this I don’t mean to refer to some imminent global disaster where all the good people get whisked away by God’s power. The future as predicted by Isaiah is quite different. It is a future marked by a spirit of reconciliation where even natural enemies lie down together… “6The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.” This is the future of God’s making, the future of ‘many mansions,’ the future of reward for faith and the future of the renewal of all things. It is not a fear-filled future but one marked by joy, peace and the wonderful Presence of God. Above all it is a future where death will no longer part us from the ones we love.  This is the vision of the vision God raises for us in the Bible… “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; 4he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” (Rev 21)

Richard Dawson, 4 December 2015

I’m speaking about the art of being gentle today. It seems like such a simplistic notion when put this way and surely not something that might be at the heart of what it means to be a Christian, and yet my belief is that it is neither simple nor unimportant. Indeed given humankind’s penchant for violence it may be one of the hardest things to establish in our culture here at Leith and in the Church. Make no mistake about it, however, gentleness is a quality that speaks of Christ more than just about anything else for it is the larger part of grace. Gentleness is the ’softness of God’s ways with us’ in the face of God’s grace. As the prophet Elijah was to discover, God doesn’t come with the great wind, fire or earthquake but in the stillness of the night—the softness of God’s touch. And the great question that we must continually ask ourselves is—are we like this? As God’s people and as children of Christ this is what we must aspire to because this is what Christ was like. He was One who wouldn’t ‘break a bent reed or snuff out a smouldering candle.’ And He is like this with us. He is not our accuser. He is not our punisher and He is not our critic. Jesus is, rather, our friend. Those who made the greatest impression on me in childhood for the Gospel were just that; friends, and I am so grateful for their soft touch. You see it was something that really made me sit up and take notice for I could not understand it. I could understand those who disliked me and who told me off and who punished me but those who were patient and loving and gentle—they were a complete mystery! How do we think others see us? Are we considered gentle? Do they trust us? Is our presence welcome? Are we considered someone with whom others can share deeply and expect understanding rather than criticism or rejection. Think on it. We are called to be gentle.

Richard Dawson, 22 November 2015

Christmas is Coming A wonderful Christian music writer who inspired many through the 70’s and 80’s was a guy by the name of Larry Norman. Larry is gone now but his influence is still felt in many places. He wrote about real things, real injustices, real faith, real tragedy and in one particularly poignant song called ‘Christmas Time’ which began with the lyrics “It’s Christmas time and the kids are getting greedy…’ The song goes on to lament the loss of true message of Jesus in the kind of Christmas our culture celebrates and I guess we’ve all reflected on the great conflict the Church has between joining a Christmas celebration which has essentially become a pagan festival and taking the good with the bad by recognising that whatever others may make of it Christ is still the reason for the season. But is there anything more we can do to raise up Christ this Christmas? Do we have to just sit back and take it or is it possible to raise Jesus higher this Christmas season? Well yes! Of course it is! Here at Leith for example we’ve been working each year to create a wonderful Christmas Eve service that really inspires families and especially their children to think about Jesus. Please, if you can, be involved in this and help us reach deeply into the community with this event. This year in January we are on duty pushing beds at the hospital on the 10th. We’ve decided instead of running our own service that we’ll all head down to the hospital chapel—push their beds and attend their service and perhaps do a little bit of visiting afterwards. So join us if you’re in town. Is there a way you could serve your community, your neighbours as a living sign of the hope you have in Christ? Let’s do it together—let’s make a difference in Jesus’ Name—let’s not give up on this culture even if it does frustrate us but let’s be gateway for Jesus into it.

Richard Dawson, 17 November 2015

I wonder how you’re feeling about Christmas. I hope you’re feeling a sense of anticipation and joy but I suspect that for many of us this will be mixed at the very least with a sense of weariness, perhaps even dread at the thought of all the work needed to enable the family to enjoy the day or of the pressure to buy something for everyone. Of course we can change the rules around this in our own families and decide to buy collectively or to buy only a certain number of presents and this is a great idea. However this assumes that you have money enough even to make these sort of decisions. What would it feel like to simply have no resources available to buy presents or even to buy Christmas food? The fact of the matter is that a lot of people in Dunedin will be in this position and no matter what pressure we might feel from or around Christmas it’s just got to be a whole lot worse if we haven’t got the resources to make any real choices around Christmas doesn't it? I wonder what we might be able to do about this at Leith? I wonder whether we might be able to make a real difference for at least some of the people I’m talking about? Before we commit to feeding our own perhaps we could think about those around us who can’t commit to anything for their families or children. There are a number of different venues for giving the food bank at PSO being perhaps the easiest to access. I think they also take toys for distribution to poorer families as well. Let’s also not forget our closer neighbours. Do we live next to a solo mum or a widow or widower? Do we have someone in our neighbourhood who may not have family around to do Christmas with. Could we offer to have them with us for Christmas dinner and so welcome in the Christ-child in this way. Christmas should be better for so many don’t you think?

Richard Dawson, 6 November 2015

Is there anything we can learn as a church and as Christians from the All Blacks win last week. I know many of you don’t follow the Rugby and, indeed, think of it as something of a blight on our culture and I can understand this but the feat of being the first team to win back to back titles in this competition and of being now the ‘winningest’ Rugby team in the world given that we have fewer player of the game than many other places in the world should not go un-noticed. These things don’t just happen by accident. In particular the AB’s lost badly in ‘91, ‘95, ‘99, ‘03 and ‘07 and in many of those tournaments they were considered the best team. What has changed? One thing I believe… Team culture. Particularly in ‘99 and ‘03 the AB’s were considered arrogant and aloof. This may have begun to change under coach Graham Henry by ‘07 but clearly prior to this there was a sense of entitlement and indifference towards the opposition who took full advantage of this. What has been so noticeable this tournament is that all that is gone and in it’s place is an essential humility and respect for both players and the wider public. Furthermore, the coach embodied this in his daily comments before the Press. He was respectful always, downplayed the AB’s achievements and showed great restraint always when answering questions around his own abilities. The culture in the team from what I can gather echoed this public display. It was focused and yet aware of the needs and desires of the public and it was nowhere more accentuated than in the amazing act of kindness from Sonny Bill Williams who rescued a young boy from a security guard who had just tackled with undue vigour the boy for being on the grounds illegally. He then handed the boy his winner’s medallion and allowed him to walk away with it. We can learn a lot from this team and this win!

Richard Dawson, 29 September 2015

I have taken this first part directly from Philip Yancey’s blog “Small is Large” G K Chesterton once said “The man (woman) who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world…. The reason is obvious.  In a large community we can choose our companions.  In a small community our companions are chosen for us.” Precisely!  Given a choice, I tend to hang out with folks like me: people who have college degrees, drink dark roast coffee, listen to classical music, and buy their cars based on EPA gas mileage ratings.  Yet after a while I get bored with people like me.  Smaller groups (and smaller churches) force me to rub shoulders with everybody else. Henri Nouwen defines “community” as the place where the person you least want to live with always lives.  Often we surround ourselves with the people we most want to live with, which forms a club or a clique, not a community. 
Anyone can form a club; it takes grace, shared vision, and hard work to form a community. The Christian church was the first institution in history to bring together on equal footing Jews and Gentiles, men and women, slaves and free.  The Apostle Paul waxed eloquent on this “mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God.”  By forming a community out of diverse members, Paul said, we have the opportunity to capture the attention of the world and even the supernatural world beyond. (Eph 3:9-10)

Leith has, to a lesser or greater degree, captured something of that unique character in the diversity of those who attend here semi-regularly, and this is great. But let’s not imagine it is going to be easy with this amount of diversity to ‘make it work.’ By this I mean not so much to make it feel good as to make it serve the Kingdom of God. The purpose of Christian community is 1. to reflect God’s deep love for all humans and 2. to serve the needy.
Are we doing this well?

Richard Dawson, 16 September 2015

Being divided is universally known to be unhelpful. Jesus said ‘Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.’ To be ’two-faced’ is to basically be one thing on the outside and another within. Even the idea of a two edged sword speaks of something inherently dangerous. The questions is, how do we avoid this? There are perhaps many different strategies we need to consider but there is one thing which I think can be incredibly helpful in keeping our hearts and minds from being divided and that is what we allow to come out of our mouths. Again the tongue is universally considered both powerful and dangerous in the Bible. James is perhaps the most strident apologist in this regard saying at one point, ‘but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison…’ And why is the tongue so derided? Because it can so easily be the wedge that creates a divided heart in us and in those around us. Again James will say, ‘From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.’ It is clear that if we use our tongues negatively we can so easily influence those around us—we can turn them against another or even against themselves. We can introduce quite evil ideas into the minds of many by the way we speak. What is perhaps even more dangerous is that with our tongues we can divide our own hearts and minds and create a double-mindedness which defeats any sense of purpose and drive in ourselves. I find this so often in myself. I am convinced of the righteousness of a particular course of action and then I say something to myself or even just out allowed—something slightly negative, perhaps magnifying the difficulty of such a path or the pain of a moment and suddenly I am divided about what I am doing. The answer is—be positive—accentuate the good!

Richard Dawson, 3 September 2015

Whatever we do in church it will always be, or at least seem, a little artificial. Whenever we gather and do something organised or structured it is, to a certain extent, artificial. But this needn’t mean that it is either meaningless or wrong. Sports, games, music, so much that we do appears artificial to a certain extent and yet it has great value and meaning. Some of what we do at church may appeal to me and some may not but the key to it is the goal. What is the goal of meeting this way each week? I think the goal is to establish key values in our live both individually and as a community. Christian faith though it centres on certain beliefs is a practical faith in that it is worked out through how we live. We live in certain ways, believing that love is our highest goal, that grace is the fundamental way love is expressed and that forgiveness is a duty not just a choice. We live by virtue of a gift and therefore our lives must be fundamentally about giving, about generosity and we grow through our connection with the spiritual community which is church. This means we grow through relationship and so developing relational skills and confidence is another fundamental practice for us. Finally we believe that the true nature of our community is defined by God, a God who longs to draw close to us. Thus we set aside this time weekly as a sign that we believe we must set aside time in our own lives to allow ourselves to know this God. How we live our lives is a key to this part of our faith for there are practices which help us to know God. Things like slowing down deliberately each day to let ourselves hear God; developing some time when we can be completely alone; for it is in this emptiness that God can most easily be heard. Finding out what context best suits us for sensing God’s presence is also important. How we live makes such a difference to our faith.