Melbourne

Oprah in Melbourne, Star Wars, and Jesus

/ MurrayCampbell / 1 Comment

By the sounds of it, Oprah Winfrey’s show in Melbourne last night was even more painful and pointless than anticipated. I simultaneously laughed at and felt sorry for Neil McMahon as I read his review on his evening at Rod Laver Arena with Oprah.

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In his summary McMahon mentioned some highlights from Oprah’s two hour sermon (and who ever said that preachers in church should preach less!):

“My heart is my brand.”

“Anything is possible if you keep your vibrational energy high.”

“The intention is why you’re sitting here tonight.”

 “Many of you here are frustrated and sick and stalled and scared and maybe even just tired … It doesn’t matter because you’re still here. This is your second chance.”

“Take your glory, Melbourne. Take your glory and run!”

I’m not sure if Oprah sounds more like Joel Osteen or the Dalai Lama, but one thing is sure, such empty bravado ain’t going to help anyone.

It ought to stand out to us how outside the Oprah bubble, media are today reporting important and often dreadful stories, including another mass shooting in America, Boko Haram kidnappings, ISIL, Syria, asylum seekers, and violence and tragedy in Melbourne itself.

On stage with lighting,  music pumping, a smiling face and winsome voice, Oprah’s pithy and pseudo-spirituality may enthuse her loyal fans, but in the real world such words are empty.

If I want to be entertained I think I’ll go and watch the new installment of Star Wars. The world needs solutions that have weight to them.

Melbourne, please don’t look to Oprah for life advice, just as I hope people aren’t listening to those blood-sucking, money draining, soul-black hole tele-evangelists who are bizarrely still being shown early Sunday morning television.

Instead, I am reminded of another preacher, and his  words were not greeted with mass cheering, but they have nonetheless stood the test of time. They are words with weight to them; words that don’t offer glib promises or shallow triumph. They are words which have made the most powerful uncomfortable, and the wisest look foolish. And they are words that have given peace to the most vulnerable, and joy to the hurting.

Oprah’s words feed the ego, which is perhaps one reason for her popularity. Jesus’ words, on the other hand, both cut the ego and restore the soul.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6:19-21)

Come to Melbourne and Discover Coffee

/ MurrayCampbell / 1 Comment

I just finished reading an article in the Washington Post that is all about Melbourne coffee. That’s right, one of America’s most celebrated newspapers has published a piece featuring “Melbourne’s coffee obsession”.

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It was kind of nice to see our American allies acknowledging that someone can do something better than they. When visiting Washington DC two years ago, I managed to buy one coffee that was almost drinkable; we had more success in New York where there are a burgeoning number of decent homes of coffee (yes, they are largely run by Aussies). It is no wonder that they flew across the Pacific, bypassing Sydney,  in order to find the place to write about coffee!

It is true that Melbournians demonstrate a proclivity toward believing we are the best at everything: we are the sporting capital, fashion capital, cultural capital, university capital, and capital of everything else of Australia, except the nation’s capital (although we did hold that title for a short period!). Humility isn’t one of our esteemed virtues, and truth be told, we have be known to exaggerate some our ‘qualities’, however when it comes to coffee, the Post has measured us with the precision any decent barista will hold in making my order.

My local coffee roaster is amazing. Freshly roasted to order every time – Five Senses

And here are five of my favourites Melbourne Cafes right now:

  1. Hash, I love their house blend
  2. Market Lane , their milk is truly special & I like the fact that they refuse to serve skim milk
  3. St Ali , because the food and coffee is alway amazing
  4. Brother Budan,  because I like drinking coffee where the chairs are hanging from the ceiling
  5. Hendriks, because it’s close to where I live & they serve Five Senses

 

Leaving aside a certain God-phobic Government and some serious social problems writer, Will Hawkes, was pretty close to mark,

“It’s hard to be unhappy for too long in Melbourne. Life in this blossoming Australian city, it seems to me, can rarely have been so good — especially if you love coffee.”

Why we send our people to Ridley College

/ MurrayCampbell / 4 Comments

I am often asked what I think of different Theological Colleges in Australia, and where we send our people to study. There are certainly many colleges across the country; Melbourne alone has no fewer than 9 Protestant Bible Colleges.

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I thought I would take an opportunity to talk about where we have been encouraging our people to study.

For sometime our preference has been to send students to Ridley College. This does not mean that there are not other suitable colleges, and this doesn’t mean that we agree with everything that takes place at Ridley, but it does mean that we have a confidence in the college to help equip our people for Gospel ministry.

Here are 8 reasons why we choose Ridley College (I appreciate that some of these points are true for others college as well):

  1. Ridley is an Evangelical College in the Reformed tradition. Sending people to liberal colleges is a poor investment and will likely cause them spiritual harm.  Sending students to colleges where theology and Bible subjects are not core is also a poor choice. It is exciting to hear students wanting to learn about ministry, but without proper theological foundations they’ll practice poor ministry.
  2. Ridley is located in Melbourne (we want to encourage local training, and we are conscious of the fact that students need to develop local networks with other like-minded Gospel workers).
  3. I need to trust the Principal. Principals have the unenviable job of leading the college through all manner of changes and challenges. The Principal needs to be a godly man with deep evangelical convictions and Gospel vision. I have a high regard for the Principal, Dr Brian Rosner, as I have for his predecessor, Peter Adam, who worked tirelessly in growing the college.
  4. Baptists are welcomed. Ridley College has trained baptist pastors for many years and will continue to do so in the future.
  5. Not only are baptists welcome, but students of a reformed and complementarian persuasion are also made welcome and respected.
  6. They exercise Gospel generosity. Several faculty have given their time and skills to help us at Mentone in different ways and times.
  7. Ridley has an excellent online Correspondence Course that can serve local churches well in training lay people.
  8. Ridley offers useful academic and pastoral courses for pastors seeking to continue their education beyond their basic degree.

There is no perfect institution for theological training, and any college doing its job  is one working closely with the local churches. We value the relationship we have with Ridley College, and we commend the college to others who are considering training for Gospel ministry.

Grand Final hype and Christian passion

/ MurrayCampbell

Only once have I missed the Grand Final, and that was in 1999. I was living in London at the time, but even then, I woke up at 4 in the morning to read the then minute by minute updates that were being published on the internet (yes, this was before the days of live-streaming).

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It doesn’t matter whether my team is playing on Grand Final day or not, it’s un-Melbourne like to not watch the game.

Tomorrow there will be 100,00 people filling the MCG and living out their love for football, with millions more watching on television at home or at the pub.

We took our children into the city yesterday and had fun at the Foxtel Footy Festival next to the MCG. Everywhere you looked there were men, women and children wearing footy jumpers and scarves (more West Coast colours than anything!). Football fans are not hard to spot: they are committed to supporting their team, they’re enthusiastic, they attend matches and if they can’t they will watch it on tv, they talk about footy at work, there are footballs lying around the house to hold and caress.

Grand Final day is so important to Melbourne that we now celebrate a public holiday on the day before Grand Final!

For the three Melbournians who doesn’t love footy, there will be something else that you’re passionate about – art, music, gardening, cooking, technology,  spending time with friends, travel.

To prove that I’m not just another nodular barely-civilised football fan (can’t think why Freemantle comes to mind!), remember that famous balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet where Juliet is standing outside in the night sky and Romeo sees her, and is smitten and starts talking to himself, 

‘See how she leans her cheek upon her hand. O that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek.’

Romeo would be satisfied to be a glove on her hand so that he could touch her cheek. It’s all very romantic, but that’s what happens with passions and desires. Whatever the heart most desires, we think and talk and dream about it.

Football, music and poetry are among the many good things we enjoy under a good God, but Grand Final week makes me wonder why Christians don’t exhibit similar enthusiasm for the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

I think of Paul who wrote,

“I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit— 2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race”.

I think of Jesus who as he approached Jerusalem, wept, and said,

‘“If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace’

Where is this Gospel driven passion today? Where is the deep-heart-convinced desire to tell Melbournians the Gospel? We are passionate about many things and yet the purposes of God in Christ is rarely one of them.

Imagine if Christians preferenced time with Church over lazy weekends and sporting events?

Imagine if Christians gave just a portion of their football fanaticism to the Great Commission instead?

Charles Spurgeon once remarked, ‘‘Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you’re not saved yourself, be sure of that!”

The thing is, while we may give intellectual assent to Surgeon’s question, what we truly desire is evident by what we give our energies too and the decisions we make in life.

Imagine, if Christians put first in their lives, God’s mission into the world?

Like everyone, I have limited time and energy, and so I need be wise and ensure that how I live is being driven by the reality that I am persuaded is of greatest value. Friends, make it the Gospel.

FYI Hawks by 48 points!

Creative city

/ MurrayCampbell

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Before dawn the air outside imitates my fridge inside,

Cold.

Morning light appears contesting the fog that had swallowed every street and house.

Soon the sun has won and is beaming with ostentatious pride,

Throwing down its heat and making all of us sweat under.

Jumper is thrown off.

T-shirt and shorts only now.

Changing my order at St Ali from a flat white to cold-press.

The kids are about to cry out for the fifth time, “I’m hot”,

When sweeping over the horizon like Carlton’s midfield on a good day,

Come the cumulonimbus,

Testing every man and woman’s canopy of nylon taffeta.

Rain descends by the tram full and steam rises off the bitchumen road back to heaven.

Beaded sweat morphs into droplets of rain.

The scent of wet hair, wet clothes, wet everything follows us home.

The meteorological combat is over as the cooling breeze

Overwhelms the furnace like air.

Weatherman is dumbfounded again.

Tourists confused.

Melbournians amused.

Another day in paradise comes to an end.

A new home for a popular blog

/ MurrayCampbell

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After blogging on Mentone Baptist’s website for the last 3 years, I’m moving here to murraycampbell.net. The Mentone Blog has been a great platform for public discourse, with 10,000s of people using it each year. While we will continue to publish articles on the church website, we are giving it a fresh focus, and so we’ve decided to begin this blog as a new home for exploring how the Gospel of Jesus Christ intersects with and can even transform Melbourne culture and churches.

This change will also alleviate the pains endure by tea-drinking Richmond supporters at Mentone Baptist who have long been thought of as coffee-drinking Carlton fans!