Noosa church asks for a challenge
Wed 02 November 2011
Philip Calder, Bachelor of Journalism
A church in Noosa is doing what most others are too afraid to do by inviting the community to challenge its God.
In a bold move, the Anglican Church of Noosa has invited people of the area to ask questions that they would ask God if they had the opportunity.
The minister Mark Calder said he wanted to engage with the community and help people to answer some of life’s big questions.
“So we set up a website, ifyoucouldaskgod.org, where people could go on and ask their hard questions – anything that they’d like to put to God,” Mr Calder said.
“They could do that either anonymously or if they put in an email address we’d have a go at answering their question personally – not that we presume to speak for God but we’d help them think through some answers.”
The church then gathered all the questions, identified the top three themes, and designed a series of three services with special talks that would attempt to give an answer to the question at hand for that week.
The first of the series, attended by over 200 people, was held on Sunday October 9, 2011, and addressed the question “My 54-year-old husband is dying of cancer. Why?”.
Assistant minister Adam Lowe said it was encouraging to see members of the community participate in the service- something which was a fairly scary thing to do for non-regulars.
“It was great to see that some of the broader public actually came and engaged with us,” Mr Lowe said.
“It’s a fairly vulnerable position to put ourselves [Christians] in- to really open ourselves up and say, ‘Actually we don’t necessarily have all the exact, precise answers and the mechanics of how all the things work, but…we’ve got some really good ideas, looking from the Bible and the perspective of Jesus, of how these things might be,’.”
Church member Chris Ivey said he had never seen this sort of community engagement at his church before.
“This is good because what you’re doing is your actually going to the people where they’re really at and what they’re really wanting to know, rather than always saying, which is the old attitude of church, people will come to us,” Mr Ivey said.
“People can come because they want to respond to these issues, so I thought it was great.”
Mr Ivey said engaging people on the Sunshine Coast with the church was difficult, and this series was a good way of achieving this.
“I think it’s very important because people don’t really see a huge need for God or for church on the Sunshine Coast,” Mr Ivey said.
Mr Ivey said an event like this gave people a good reason to come along to church.
“You have to give people a logical reason to leave behind an absolutely stunning day where they could otherwise be doing something else,” Mr Ivey said.
Mr Calder said despite the appearance that many people on the Sunshine Coast had their lives under control, most were still searching for more.
“Although there are many people who, yes, enjoy the lifestyle and everything, scratch a little bit and you see that people are hurting underneath,” Mr Calder said.
“There’s a lot of broken people, a lot of people have moved here to make a fresh start after a failed marriage, and yet find that doesn’t really work for them.
“So there are a lot people who, although they enjoy the superficial in what the lifestyle offers, are really quite desperately unhappy and not satisfied with life.”
Mr Ivey agreed that many people in Noosa were still not completely content.
“In many ways people here have a genuine, good work-life balance, so they’ve got that part sorted out,” Mr Ivey said.
“They’re genuinely in a nice part of the world, so for them it’s like, ‘Why is this still not right?’.”
Mr Lowe said there was a unique mix of people on the Sunshine Coast, but that did not necessarily make the questions asked by the community unique.
“Even though there’s a mixed demographic, I think the reality is that most humans still have the same big questions,” Mr Lowe said.
“So to see the questions emerge regarding suffering, violence and the future, these things aren’t hugely surprising that these are top of mind for people.”
Mr Calder said the key message was that humans would never be fully satisfied outside of a relationship with God.
“We were actually wired for a relationship with God – that’s how we were created – and until people discover that relationship that they were made for then they’re not all they were actually meant to be,” Mr Calder said.
“I think we’re trying to help people to see that they can find that meaning, that satisfaction, that fulfilment in a relationship with the God which they were actually made for.”
The “If You Could Ask God” series continues over the next two Sundays.
Image(s) designed by Philip Calder