Friday Reflection: Christocentricity.

This is a post I wrote in September 2006.  Each Friday I'm going to look back and find something from the 5 years I've been blogging and bring it into today's context.

Here's part of the original post, about an elective I did at Recharge in 06

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The Recharge booklet had this little blurb about this elective.

Within the church, fashions come and go, fads rise and die, agenda’s wax and wane. When all the hype dies down we sometimes as Christians and churches find ourselves off-centre, with our energies and passions directed at things other than Christ and His agenda setting teachings. This elective will examine how the Beatitudes contrast vividly with aspects of contemporary Australian spirituality and how we can recalibrate.

Straight off the bat we tossed up the dominant properties of today’s Australian spirituality. In the media, both Christian and secular, who are the main characters representing the Australian church. What do we within the church see as the main aspects that are seen about Aussies ‘religious spirituality’.


I put forward that Australian’s spirituality is music driven, we discussed the music/worship niche; it seems that churches these days are defined by their music. This is highlighted by the fact that people can walk out of a church service and ask “How was the worship tonight?” – “Yeah it was a little off tonight hey…”Churches win new people from other churches because their music is better.


Stan (of course) had a list he had prepared earlier. Dominant Christian figures included mainly Anglican and Catholic Bishops, but of course you can’t ignore that these days Brian Houston is probably Australia’s most well known minister. He defined the major themes of Australian Spirituality to include some of the following, power, wealth, blessing, intensity, prosperity, (there were others but I’m sorry they’ve slipped my mind).


I think he was pretty well right on.


We then spent the remaining time looking at Jesus’ sermon. His big speaking opportunity when he takes the time to teach people about his Father.
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To read the entire blog click here.

These days I think the focus of music is still high in most churches.  Though I know the culture of City North and other Baptist churches around here is more making sure proper doctrine and Biblical teaching is at the forefront of services.

I think the growing pressure on the church, and the secular disdain for the church is changing our major themes of "...power, wealth, blessing, intensity, prosperity..." and making us find a firmer foundation to base our beliefs on.

The church can always do better, and in Australia I think the majority still have to change their main theme back to Christ.  But as persecution grows I think that will force us to do that more and more.