DAY FIVE: THURSDAY MARCH 23 HOBART - ADELAIDE

We were due to meet at the River City church in the city area of Hobart at 9:30 ready to leave for the airport. We needed to get the hired mini bus back by 10:30 to take advantage of the single period booking. Hobart airport has been renewed but the security seems to be more stringent than the other larger (and possibly more important) airports. We couldn’t take the bus to through to simply drop off the baggage without risking a heavy fine (information provided by a courteous but deliberate word from a security guard) so we lugged the baggage from the drop off point to the terminal. When we were going through the screening system a couple of the guys found that shoes and other things that had never set off the alarm at any domestic or international airport were tripping the alarm in Hobart.

The Virgin Blue flight to Adelaide takes about an hour and a half flying time, but with the change in time zone we could leave at 11:30 and arrive at 12:30 Adelaide time. I hadn’t been to the new Adelaide airport. Nice if you like minimalist lines and metallic feel and long walks to the baggage area. It’s a straight line terminal that includes international as well as domestic flights. We were met by Phyllis (name problem again) and John Ridley. Great people. We stopped off at the Koorong Book store for lunch and all of us had to exercise twice as much constraint to stay legal. One in the food department and one in the buying book department. Les Holmes saw the all day breakfast and it sounded good to Richard and myself, so we suffered the undignified comments of the others who had quiche and salad with juice. The religious spirit never seems to miss an opportunity…..but then neither does the appetites of the flesh for (not so) greasy eggs and bacon. This is such a great bunch of guys to travel around the country with. Plenty of offense given but absolutely none taken.

We were expecting to meet with Andrew Evans at the state parliament building, but John was told we were to meet him at a café in Campbelltown. When we got there he phoned up to say that his PA had told him the wrong details and he was in town. We waited for him and got involved in a very fast paced discussion on what the shape of a church in the city might be. Lots of diagrams later Andrew arrived and we were hard into discussions about the South Australian elections and the make up of the parties and the deals that needed to be done. Family First now has two seats in the upper house. The Labor Party only have seven out of twenty one. The Liberals have eight, so there are going to be lots of deals going on for business to proceed. The six non major members are made up of two Family First, two Anti Poker Machine Party (or something like that) a Democrat and a Green. A very interesting concoction.

The Queensland guys were able to ask straight questions about Family First candidates in the Queensland elections (due some time this year). There are a few issues to work out with Family First putting up candidates in electorates where there are Christians standing for major parties. In the Queensland system this is a problem because they have an optional preferential system and people can just vote for one person without preferences. It means that people voting for two different Christian candidates can split the vote and they could have an amalgamated total to get one in but wouldn’t do it unless all votes had preferences. The problem for the voting Christians is to make sure they do put preferences right. Educated voting has always been a challenge. Just ask Fred Nile who could have seen another CDP person elected to the upper house in NSW except for the inability of Christians to correctly place preferences.

Andrew is a hugely wise person and is doing a great job. I think he has a lot to offer young Christian candidates about becoming “parliament savvy.” Even though he has only been in the house for one term, his wisdom goes back through church and other leadership roles and is so deeply rooted in the real life situation, but spiritual and righteous at the same time. He knows what to let go and what to take a stand on.

After our time with Andrew we were taken to Hosanna Heights, the accommodation place across the road from the Morialta National Park. It is owned by a Malaysian Chinese couple who have transformed what used to be the Catholic Seminary for South Australia into an accommodation place for overseas students and other students as well as a Christian conference centre. We all have old style but very nice ensuite rooms.

This evening we met with a couple of Uniting Church pastors from Salisbury and Elizabeth who run a network of leaders in that northern part of the city. South Australia has seen a bit of a shake up with Rod Denton standing down as the leader for the city and the state and with some sparks and disagreements between prayer people and pastors (in particular, Rod). A couple of things are clear.
It is clear to me and to the others that the idea of a prayer or prophetic movement as an identifiable entity is over. It was probably never meant to be a movement any more than there was meant to be a unity movement. The prayer movement has taken on a form of its own and should probably have been like the form a good steak takes on when it is served up on a plate in front of you. It loses its shape and becomes energy that enables your body to do all kinds of (hopefully) good things. All the restoration works of God should be like that. I would call all of these things “prophetic movements” as long as you use the idea of movement in the non-institutional sense. God wants his people to hear a word and respond. The word is to the church just as Jesus spoke to the churches in the early chapters of Revelation. That word was to shape the churches from the inside out, not the outside in. Well, we are witnessing the somewhat painful experiences of death come over something that started as prophetic fulfillment and finished up as an institution.

The second thing is that in South Australia what used to be a state wide thing must now become a city by city, region by region thing. We talked to these two people and heard the heart beat of God for a genuine work of the Spirit that would rise up in a city area of this larger state capital and in the regions around it. This has been planted by the good work of Rod and his team and needs to die so that God can bring the next season’s growth. We were in awe of what we saw happening here. It is a much purer work, since it is coming from people who want to serve something rather than to control something. It is subtle but very powerful. It’s a bit the same as for Melbourne. Forget the big city one size fits all operation, and allow the bigger polis to be changed city by city (i.e. municipality by municipality). I think it is a genuine Aussie strategy that will be the most effective in the end. Just think if every region had its own expression of church and the leaders came together from that basis rather than a central body directing the traffic. Much more would happen. This is definitely a new wineskin that needs maximum encouragement and affirmation. These two terrific people were greatly encouraged and so were we.