If I Ever Feel Better

Today in a Maroubra living room, we decided that it would be a good idea if we gave the Bay Hotel a wide berth for the next while - at least those of us who were directly involved in last Wednesday’s incident.

I’m torn about this.  Obviously the place cannot guarantee our safety and it’s possible that I’ll be remembered and possibly targeted, but it makes me feel so weak and powerless.  I’m filled with frustration that not only have I been prevented from going somewhere I enjoy - I’m staying away to avoid physical violence.

Obviously, no smart person deliberately walks into unsafe situations, but I feel the need to prove my own worth as a person - as someone who isn’t cowed or bullied.  I feel like I’ve been tested and I’ve failed.

A few weeks ago, I posted about an incident that happened during our regular Wednesday night trivia at the Maroubra Bay Hotel.  It made me wonder a little bit about some of the issues you hit once you step out of your own subculture and into another.  Tonight has only raised more questions.

It should have been our best night yet.  After turning up weekly since August, we finally made friends with some of the locals.  We sat at a table with a young guy called Dave, who turned out to be a bit of a trooper - and possibly the solution to our lack of sports trivia knowledge.  Later on, we were joined by group of three girls, who we had won over by sharing our bar tab with them.  We chatted and bonded and it made me feel far more connected than I have since moving to Sydney.  Is making new friends always as simple as this?

Then at 10:30, a drunk guy who had been heckling the trivia earlier came over and squirted a sauce bottle in Dave’s face.  Completely unprovoked.  He then proceeded to walk around spraying the rest of us with tomato.  As we were cleaning up, he came back for more, this time getting violent and pushing Dave around.  Having just met Dave, I was amazed at his composure - he was clearly fuming but he didn’t say a word and didn’t fight back.

Even as we gathered our things and hurried out, the guy threatened us and pushed us out.  He circled us as we stood on the pavement outside and went in for a swing at Dave, busting his lip, all the time shouting that he ran the place and that we’d better not come back ever again.

I don’t know what to think after this.  We reported the incident to the police, but I’m not confident it will make a difference.  The bar staff clearly tolerate this kind of behaviour - and there was no apparent security.  The woman running the trivia night cut it short by a round even prior to these dramas, simply because there were some patrons acting aggressively.  Whether the trivia night can even continue under these circumstances is a bit doubtful.

In the coming days, we’ll need to debrief.  We’ll need to see how the issue is handled by the pub and by the cops.  We’ll need to work out what kind of risks we’re willing to take in future.  Because tonight went bad very quickly - and it could have been a lot worse.

For all its notoriety, I’ve always found the Maroubra Beach area to be a pretty safe place to hang out.  Maybe it’s living in the red light district of Sydney that’s changed my perspective on “safe”, but I’ve rarely seen violence or aggression on my nights out down there.

Our little church community has been spending Wednesday nights at the new pub trivia down by the beach, as a way of getting to know the locals and supporting a local initiative.  We’ve done well out of it - lots of free drinks, some good times and a generally friendly crowd.

But tonight was different.  When I went to open the door of the pub after a brief nod to the bouncer, the drunk guy standing outside held the door shut and said “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

I looked him in the eye and went once more to open the door.  “What the fuck are you doing?  You’re not going in there,” he said again, this time grabbing my shirt.

The bouncer stepped up and said pacifically “It’s alright, mate.” I’m not sure to which one of us this was directed.  When the guy wouldn’t let me near the door, the bouncer restrained him physically and indicated for me to go in.  I got the door open, but the guy pushed the bouncer away and grabbed my shirt again.  Thumping my shoulder against the doorframe as he did, he glared at me and said “Don’t even fucking think about it, cunt.”

I managed to pull away and the bouncer calmed him down while I went inside to join my friends.

This wasn’t the first incident of the night.  The sprayed sauce all over the windows told a story of its own.  Caleb said that the guy who had manhandled me had already snapped a pool cue in half and whacked another guy in the head.  He had later grabbed a handful of steak knives and chased after someone he was arguing with - only to be tackled by some of his friends.

For reasons unknown, management had decided to let the guy and his group stay - probably because there would only have been more trouble and the solitary bouncer would have had his hands full. Trivia was both more raucous - from the drunk crowd up the front - and a lot quieter - most of the trivia crowd had been scared off.

We stayed, partly because we wanted to have our trivia and partly because this is the kind of thing we have to expect.  If you’re serious about living outside of the suburban, Bible Belt clique, you’re going to occasionally get pushed around by a thug with a lot of booze and some crystal meth in him.  Do you walk away because you don’t feel too comfortable and relocate your Wednesday nights to someone’s living room?  It’s just one of those little choices you’ve got to make and I’m pretty happy with the one we made tonight.

An old church pastor of mine used to argue that new initiatives and experiments should only every come from “a place of strength”.  Too often, disaffected people try new things out of frustration and desperation and the new things crumble under that weight.

There’s a flipside to that coin.  When things are going well, that’s when really radical changes will never happen - because people have too much to lose.

At the aforementioned pastor’s instigation, back in 2006, I sounded out a range of people about a possible new church plant to get out into places we weren’t getting and to people we weren’t reaching.  The general response was that this was a fantastic idea, but not for them individually.  They were too committed to the current structure.  They were involved in something else that was going well.  They would have to leave things behind.

The same kind of reaction happened last night when Andy pitched a new, emerging-style church plant.  Some people were thrilled, others struck by what this would mean for them.  Unlike the last example, this is not just an academic idea, this will happen and it will split the church.

Things have been going well at our church and I think that’s half the problem.  If the current model isn’t failing you, it’s hard to see why it needs to change.  But it’s not about us, it’s about the people who don’t fit the current model.  It’s for people who would never set foot inside our little church, no matter how many candles and topical sermons and mellow rock songs we give them.

Maybe we need to see that failure before we are willing to try something new.

I’m talking at church tonight - the first time since my move and in my new church home.  I’m still so fresh and new there that I’m not quite so sure of myself as I was back in Canberra.  Maybe it’s that uncertainty about whether people will warm to me and my jokes and my particular take on things.

I don’t plan on an any major heresy or any gratuitous swearing (unlike in previous instances) but there’s still a matter of audience receptiveness and openness.  I guess I’ll just have to judge that as I go.

Only real problem is that I’m still partially knocked-out with tonsilitis, the reason why this blog has been quiet this week.  There’s little to report when you’re lying in bed reading.

I was interested to read this new blog post by Tim Keller on inner-city church planting because of how much it linked in with some conversations I had yesterday.

So often we take a view of ministry borrowed from 19th century overseas mission and apply it wherever we go. This includes a new kind of “commuter” church where Christians, usually from more affluent, white areas, set up church plants in new areas - but conventiently don’t even move house.

This may seem like an ok idea - bringing church to areas that are underserviced. But it treats church merely as a “service”. There’s not much chance of community building when you live thirty minutes away (on a good day) and can’t just drop by a new friend’s place for coffee. So it ends up making the locals feel patronised (bad) or become passive consumers (also bad).

But in such a tribal city as Sydney, who is ever going to move to a different part of town just to be Jesus’ hands and feet?

It was my B-list blogger wannabe friend Andy who alerted me (given that I am without reliable internet at the moment) to the latest Mark Driscoll shenanigans including his call for more male church planters. I followed this up by reading the Internet Monk’s thoughts on the matter, especially his response to Driscoll’s once-a-day shagging plan for pastors.

Now, like the Monk, I think daily sex would be an awesome thing yet as he points out, this isn’t always possible for a range of reasons. Strangely enough, he misses the reason that resonates most with me - singless.

Because just about any Christian in ministry is going to tacitly assume that a pastor means a married person. Hence, the reasons for non-daily boinking are going to be marital in nature.

It’s odd, because a lot of pastors are more than willing to trot out the noble example of Paul and his commendation of the single life. Yet the ministries which we permit single people into are severely limited. Missionaries, ok. Singles ministries, ok. Even home group leading or music can be acceptable. Senior leadership? Pastoral ministry? Maybe not.

I’ve ranted elsewhere at length about how uncomfortable the Christian church is with singleness. And nowhere is it more apparent than in leadership. You can probably count the number of single senior pastors you know on one finger and still have room to pick your nose.

I can come up with a few reasons for this discomfort but none of them are particularly good. We might assume they’re gay (like the married Ted Haggard) or that they might be susceptible to sexual temptation (like any disgraced married pastor you can think of) or that they are too immature given their unwillingness to enter into a marital commitment (because it’s always a simple matter of choice, natch).

Is this ever going to change?