Developing a Christian Worldview

Here are the sermon notes from Sunday morning just gone. Enjoy.

The Biblical Story as THE Grand-Narrative for Life

In this series we are going to be looking at the development of a Christian worldview based on the bible as THE grand-narrative for life.

We are going to look at God’s story, Genesis through to Revelation, as THE framing story for our lives.

The story out of which we live life, approach life, make decisions, determine priorities, steward our finances, etc.

Our entire preaching team will be preaching different messages and addressing different topics within the series.

There will be plenty of variety; it’ll always be interesting, challenging, encouraging, and life changing.

Worldview:

We all have a worldview, a particular way of look at the world.

Our worldview is…

‘The set of beliefs about fundamental aspects of reality that ground and influence one’s perceiving, thinking, knowing, and doing.’

More simply, worldview is our philosophy, mindset, outlook on life, perspective, through which we live our lives, make our decisions, behave and so on.

The lenses through which we look at and interpret life and the world.

Everyone has a worldview. It may be undeveloped, intuitive, and even inconsistent, or it may be the product of serious reflection.

Either way we all have a worldview.

It will be made up and determined by all sorts of influences.

- Generation type (mouse = small rodent or an infrared scrolling device for our computers, quality TV = a head in a box talking to the family or 100 channels in high definition on a 46inch wide screen television)
- Up bring and parents influence on our lives (man does the outside work, women does the inside work, vote national son, vote labour, don’t vote there all crooks)
- Movies we’ve watched
- Music we listen to
- People we hang out with
- Experiences we have had
- Stuff we heard, someone say, sometime, somewhere, sounded pretty good
- Accurate biblical theology and understanding
- Inaccurate biblical theology and understanding
- Western world and social conditioning that is all around us

All of these things influence us and cause us to have the worldview that we have.

All of these things influence the lenses through which we look at life.

The end result is also that we have a mixed bag kind of worldview.

We might have a similar worldview to the people around us but it will still be our own unique perspective on life.

This worldview implicitly affects the way that we live, the choices we make, the attitudes that we carry, everything that we do.

It’s through this worldview that we perceive, interpret, and then respond to and live life.

It will determine your attitude and treatment of…

Money
- You earned it, you spend it on what you like, its yours
- Money is God’s, I steward it on his behalf
- I pay my tithes, as long as I give 10% to God in the offering, I can do what I like with the rest

Pre-marital Sex
- Bible teaches clearly sex is only for marriage
- Everyone is doing it so surely not that bad
- Didn’t have condoms in the bible so now its all good, don’t get pregnant or catch an STI

Depending on your worldview, that is shaped by all those different influencers, you’ll have your own unique perspective on things like money and pre-marital sex.

As Christ-followers, as Christians, our goal in life though, isn’t a unique personal perspective on life.

Our goal must be to see things from a biblical perspective, to develop a Christian worldview.

Jesus came to teach and reshape the worldview of that day and age and of our day and age.

He came to teach a new way of looking at the world and living in the world.

He came and taught a Kingdom worldview, a Christian worldview, a biblical worldview.

In Matthew 5 the, Sermon on the Mount, Jesus repeatedly says, you have heard it said… but I say unto you…

He was teaching a new way.

He was teaching a new way of looking at the world, at life, at everything.

He taught that blessed are the poor, the meek, the hungry, the persecuted.

He taught that anger wanting to kill someone is as bad as actually killing them.

He taught that lust is just as sinful as actual adultery.

He taught that and eye for and eye, or a tooth for a tooth, isn’t the way it is to work anymore, we are to turn the other cheek.

He taught that we are to love our enemies.

He taught that we are not to store up treasures and possessions on earth.

He taught that it’s not about saying Lord and sounding religious. It’s about obeying our father who is in heaven.

Jesus taught a whole new way of living, a whole new way of viewing the world.

His teaching is to shape our worldview.

Our goal must be to see, interpret, perceive the world according to Jesus’ teachings not simply according to what we have picked up here there and everywhere over the years.

Romans 12:2
- Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
- Don’t copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.

We have to develop a Christian worldview.

The Biblical Story as THE Grand-Narrative for Life:

How do we develop a Christian worldview?

It will be a life long process, a journey we must chose to walk everyday.

Being transformed by God, into the likeness of Christ is a life long process.

Also we can take the time to study the essential elements of a worldview. Things like our…

- beliefs about the existence and nature of God
- beliefs about the origins and nature of the universe
- beliefs about the purpose of the universe, of creation, of humankind
- beliefs about the nature and purpose of humanity, in general and personally
- beliefs about what is right and wrong, good and evil in the world and how evil can be overcome and wrongs made right.

We can take the time to study theses issues and ensure that our worldview is indeed a biblical worldview.

We can go to the bible and study each of these topics one by one.

We could find truth by doing this. The bible is a divine book. It is full of wisdom, full of instructions for living life, is full of commands to follow.

God’s word is a mine that we can dig into searching for riches of truth and encouragement for life.

So we could develop our Christian world view through a study of appropriate biblical principles and propositions.

However, the bible is so much more than a set of principles and propositions though.

The bible is a grand-narrative, a metanarrative.

This means that the bible is an all encompassing story, a grand story which orders, explains, and gives meaning to life.

It’s the overarching story in which all of our individual stories fit and by which we can make sense of our stories.

Too often we focus on a devotional style reading of the bible that emphasises reading it only in parts and in pieces, looking for a ‘word for the day.’

The bible though is the grandest story of all, its God’s story, and it must be the framing story of our lives.

I’m a reader, I read a lot. Non-fiction and fiction. If you read novels you probably know how easy it is to pick up a 800 page or 1000 page novel and race through it cover to cover in no time at all.

Yet the bible 800-900 pages. Wow, it takes an eternity to read.

Partly that’s because we mainly read it looking for that ‘word for the day.’ Hard to keep going once you have had a few ‘words.’

Partly as well it is because we too often don’t have a sense of the big story that is unfolding as we read.

We get lost and bogged down in all the little stories along the way.

We lose sense of how they all tie together and what is going on.

In a novel there is a sense of beginning, an introduction of characters, the establishment of a stable situation that is about to be disrupted. Then there is some sort of significant conflict, action and drama, tension and the need for resolution. That resolution comes, we see now how our main characters are going to live on with stability restored and we finish the last page happily shutting the book. (Unless there is going to be a sequel).

Most of the time we don’t get that sense of a grand story unfolding as we read the bible, yet that is exactly what is happening.

The bible from Genesis to Revelation contains one major story and it’s the most exciting, mind blowing, paradigm shattering, history changing, you could ever come across.

There is a lot more to the story than the fact that humans are sinful and need Jesus in order to go to heaven.

It’s and exciting story. It’s the true story of the whole world.

In this series, as we look to develop a Christian worldview, rather than digging here an there in the bible for truths essential to life, we are going to look at the grand-narrative of scripture and as we journey through that we’ll pause along the way to learn the lessons we need to learn.

We are going to focus on the big story of the bible, God’s story, and allow that to be the framing story that shapes our worldview.

This is important because framing stories make a huge difference to how we interpret the rest of life.

We have to allow the right story to frame our lives.

Not the story of western culture, postmodernism, evolution, relativism, etc, etc, but God’s story.

Take the issue of humanity for example…

If our lives are framed by the story of evolution – then we are all area as a result of chance, because our ancestors where strongest and survived when others where weak, the strongest will survive today and the weak will die, this is in the best interests of humankind, our species is getting stronger and stronger. Don’t help the weak, the poor, the oppressed, and the downtrodden. Keep them down, wipe them out, they’ll only threaten our survival and use our resources if lift them up.

If our lives are framed by God’s, the biblical grand-narrative – humanity is the climax of his creation. Every person is created in his image, with special standing before God, special fellowship with God, unique eschatological expectations, and for special community with God, with each other, and with the world we live in. As a result of this and our commitment to live according to a biblical worldview we are compelled to make a stand for justice, to pursue relationship with God, to develop community one with another, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy, to take a stand for the poor, the oppressed, the weak and the marginalized.

Your framing story profoundly impacts the way that you live life.

Philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre says, ‘I can only answer the question, what am I to do? If I can first answer the question, of what story do I find myself a part?

We can only truly know what to do in life; how to live life, once we accurately establish and understand the story we are a part of.

We can only make sense of life today, of our lives today, if we understand how the story started, what has happened in the story so far, and how the story is going to end.

That’s what’s exciting about the biblical grand-narrative; we can look at the start, the middle, and even forwards into the future in regards to how the story will end.

The Biblical Grand-Narrative:

Chapter One – Creation
God creates the heavens and the earth, creates mankind. The master piece of His creation, made in His image, living in an incredible relationship and place of blessing with God.

Chapter Two – Sin
Humankind rebelled against God, death, destruction, chaos, entered the world. Because of sin we are relationally separated from God. The wonder of creation, us included, is marred.

Chapter Three – Israel
God adopts Israel as his special people, always with the plan of reaching out and adopting every people has his own afresh. Israel’s journey with God is full of highs and lows as they live righteously for a season but then fall away into sin and idolatry.

Chapter Four – Christ
God sends his only Son Jesus, who dies on the cross, sinless and perfect, he pays the price for your sin and mine. We can be forgiven our sins by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ.

Chapter Five - Church
The body of Christ, you and I, the great community of believers, living to see his kingdom come, his will be done on earth as in heaven. Empower by the Holy Spirit, called to work together as the body of Christ.

Chapter Six – Re-Creation
Our eternal hope as Christians. A new heavens and a new earth. Eternal relationship with Christ. God will wipe away every tear from there eye, etc etc. Here we we’ll be looking at things like the second coming of Jesus, the rapture, heaven and hell, the millennial reign, pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation, post-tribulation, all those kinds of things.

As we journey through each chapter in the biblical-narrative we are going to pause and learn the lessons we need to learn essential to developing a Christian worldview.

Four Barriers to Developing a Christian Worldview:

The one thing all of us know is that we don’t know everything. All of us, to one degree or another, have a worldview that is a mixture of all sorts of things, we have to adjust this.

So, from time to time throughout this series, hopefully, you are going to be faced with challenges of some sort or another to your worldview.

At times it may be in little things, on other occasions it may be in regards to some big things.

It’s important that we are willing to adjust our thinking, perceiving, and understanding to be in line with God’s word when these things come up.

Four Barriers to Developing a Christian Worldview

1. Poor Theology

I don’t think anyone has a perfect and definitively true systematic theology worked out in their head.

We all carry bits and pieces of theology with us that are probably pretty poor.

Poor due to our own personal interpretations of the bible as we read it privately.

We’ll be talking about this in a couple of weeks.

Basically though we are all theologians, we all read the bible and draw conclusions from our readings.

We are not necessarily all good theologians though, sometimes the conclusions we draw are a long way away from an accurate reading of the text.

Poor theology as well due to the fact that all of us have listened to preachers for years and years, and preachers don’t always get things right.

It’s a real challenge to preachers.

When it comes to preaching though, poor theology because as listeners we have only ever remember lines that really stand out to us, not whole sermons and the balance that was hopefully taught around that line.

- God’s will, God’s bill – forget stewardship or long term financial planning.
- Bigger level, bigger devil – forget the complexities that come with increased responsibilities, it’s the devil making it hard.
- God says it, I believe it, that settles it – oh if life was that simple.
- If the Spirit’s not moving, I move the Spirit – because of course I have the ability to control God.
- God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called – don’t worry about training, all you need is the Spirit.
- Faith is the currency of heaven – no where does the bible talk about wisdom, oh there is that one funny book in the Old Testament.
- Don’t just walk on water, get out of the boat and blow it up – I’m not even sure what that means.
- 1 Cross + 3 nails = 4 given – I don’t know why we bother with soteriology, the study of salvation, all we need is some simple maths.

Often all we remember are the one liners, and often all that is give as an explanation is the one liners.

Developing a Christian worldview almost has to mean challenging some of the nice one liners we have though.

It’ll mean challenging things like our concepts of heaven and hell.

Most people think heaven is a place you go when you die, a place where the streets are gold, where God is preparing a mansion for you, where you will spend eternity.

The bible doesn’t teach that.

Most people think hell is a large lake of fire.

It seems most likely that this is not the case either.

We have to be willing to let go of some of the poor theology we have inherited over the years.

Embrace the challenge.

2. Our Own Agendas and Self-Interests

No matter who we are we all have personal agendas and self interests that mean we want to and look for particular conclusions or perspectives to be biblical.

If you don’t want your kid to get a tattoo then no matter what the bible will teach that tattoos are of the devil.

If you want to get a tattoo, no matter what the bible will teach that tattoos are all good.

We have our own self interests that make it hard for us to develop a Christian worldview.

We don’t want to look at issues of worldview because it might mean change we have to make that we don’t want to make.

We don’t want to look at a Christian perspective on poverty, or justice, or the environment.

The result may mean too much change.

The reality is the Christian life is meant to be a radical, counter culture, scary, faith filled adventure, measured by different standards and weights than what the world measures with.

I think intuitively we all know this to be true, yet we are reluctant to embrace this in its fullness, I’m reluctant to really embrace this.

Encroaches on every area of life. I don’t always like this. My money, my time, my goals, my achievements, my ambitions.

It’ll mean some things that we don’t really want it to mean.

3. The Discipleship Challenge

Man it’s easy following Jesus at first. Living with Jesus adds so much to your world.

Ever present help in times of trouble, source of wisdom, strength, encouragement.

Business is struggling, we go to God’s word and we find keys to overcome.

Relationship issues, we find keys for breakthrough here.

All sorts of things. It’s like the bible is a life coach that will lead you to certain victory.

And it is that.

Then you start to develop a Christian worldview based on the bible as the grand-narrative for life

You discover that victory might not be what you defined as victory.

Success might not be what you have previously defined as success, what the world around you defines as success.

You discover that following Jesus means changing and shifting priorities, goals, dreams, everything.

At first following Jesus meant extra blessing and favour on your dreams and ambitions, that you would more likely achieve the things you always wanted to achieve.

Now following Jesus means redefining your life.

It’s the discipleship challenge. It’s a real challenged.

It’s moving from saying God you’re mine, come bless my life to…

God I am yours, how can I bless you.

You had a plan and God was going to help you make it all come true.

Now you discover that God has a plan and life is actually about getting in behind that.

This can be a challenging and difficult transition.

4. The Clash of Western Worldview and Christian Worldview

I think the greatest barrier we have to over come in developing a Christian worldview is the western worldview and social conditioning of the western world that we are surrounded with.

Each of us is massively influenced by western worldview.

If we are not careful the story of the western world so easily becomes the framing story of our lives.

Essentially the western story is a story of humanism, individualism, and consumerism.

Reason and logic rule the world, ‘knowledge is power.’

Through science alone, and utterly apart from God, humankind could build a perfect world.

This story is basically unhelpful and untrue, yet so easily we find ourselves living according to it.

Our western worldview and culture so easily ends up determining…

- How we define abundance and lack.
- How we define success.
- How we interpret scripture.

Western social conditioning so easily determines what we see as fashionable, reasonable, justifiable, normal, or right or wrong.

It doesn’t take long for us to have moved a long way away from God’s story.

We need to reflect and be aware of when our western perspective is informing us rather than the bible.

The biblical grand-narrative is a very different story to the western story.

But it is the true story of the whole world, the only story out of which we can successfully live life.

Thin Places

In his book Surprised by Hope, N.T.Wright makes a brief mention of the Celtic tradition of ‘thin places.’ These are places where the curtain between heaven and earth seems almost transparent. There is a Celtic saying that heaven and earth are only three feet apart but in thin places that distance is even smaller. Wright sees thin places as being just one aspect of a much wider theology of place that has been under serious threat in the West since the Enlightenment.

Most often ‘thin places’ are associated with wild and rugged landscapes. They are places where one finds themselves unable but to marvel at the wonder of creation and thus the wonder of the Creator. For me I am in a thin place when I lie on the ground at night looking at the stars in the sky, walk along the beach after a storm, stand on the deck as the rain pours down, or when flying and I look down upon the clouds as the sun rises on the horizon. The space between heaven and earth feels thin. God feels so close. A friend today described the Sistine Chapel as a thin place.

In my experience I find that there are also ‘thin moments’ that happen in life. Moments where heaven and earth seem to overlap as the presence or wonder of God permeates the atmosphere. Communion for me is nearly always a thin place or a thin moment. A bride walking down the isle thin moment, it’s a moment that is so right because it is the outworking of God’s will established in Genesis. Over the years various youth camps and youth leaders retreats I have been on, have nearly always been an occasion for a ‘thin moment’ as the presence of God touches hearts and lives.

Thin places / moments are not always where or when we expect them though. U2’s Hallelujah song has undoubtedly led to thin moments in the middle of a rock concert. Andre Rieu performing Amazing Grace in Melbourne in 2008 was to me a thin place, as was most recently, Susan Boyle singing on Britain’s Got Talent. Even Simon Cowell was wowed. The bible says that blessed are the gentle and the lowly, blessed are the meek, that the last shall be first, and that we are not to judge based on outward experiences. This performance was a thin moment to me.

What are thin places in your life? Have you ever experienced a thin moment?

The Mission of the Church and the Methods of the Church

There is much discussion these days about the mission of the church and existing patterns and methods of church.

Of course this discussion has been going on for 2000 years; it seems though that the intensity of this discussion is at a level unseen in recent history.

What is the churches mission and how can it best fulfil that mission? The ‘what’ of the church and the ‘how’ of the church. To me these seem to be the questions at the heart of the emerging church conversation.

For years the ‘what’ question for the church was seen by most to have a satisfactory answer in; ‘save souls from going to hell.’ Preach the message of the cross in order that sinners might repent of their sins and find forgiveness in Jesus Christ, and thus be converted to Christianity. Plundering hell to populate heaven was a slogan or bumper sticker I seem to recall seeing or hearing along the way.

The ‘how’ was then seen to be a no brainer. Preach, teach, evangelise and pray; what is now referred to a ‘ministry’ model of running church. At least this seems to have been method of outworking this in the Pentecostal and Charismatic churches of Australasia. Ministry through the enabling of the Holy Spirit and the outworking of the gifts of the Spirit. Ephesians 4:11-13 has been a core passage of scripture in regards to this, and He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

Beginning in the early 80’s and really coming to fruition in the last 10 years or so there as been a shift from a ‘ministry’ model of church to a ‘leadership’ model. Leadership was seen to be an essential ‘how’ in making the ‘what’ a reality. Young leaders within the church, with an appreciation that most churches in the world were under 200, saw this ‘ministry’ model as a limited ‘how’ as they sort to reach lost people and build the church. Looking to some of the larger churches that did exist and outside the church at the business world, the leadership model began to take prominence. This model has sought to promote more effective ministry though the promotion of leadership within the church. Leadership is seen to build the church, by building and releasing ministry that builds people. At times the leadership model has been criticised as being too ‘corporate’ or too ‘structured’; it has been accused of limiting the ‘move of the Spirit.’ However in many places it has been very effective in creating structures that have allowed ministries to grow, expand, and multiply which has lead to a lot of church growth.

With this history of ministry and a focus on leadership many of today’s young leaders have grown up theologically illiterate, or at best with a very basic and simplistic theology. This is causing many of today’s young leaders, particularly those of the Millennial Generation (aka Gen Y), to begin asking afresh the ‘what’ and then necessarily, the ‘how’ question of mission and method within the church. What are they actually trying to do as Christian leaders, leading in this thing called the church? A question that is being discussed with reformation like intensity.

Largely this discussion seems to be being led by those in the emerging church, even though the figure heads, leaders, key voices, (Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, Scott McKnight, Dan Kimball, Tony Jones, and many others etc) are an older generation. The thing is; what they are talking about is resonating with a young generation.

The old ‘what’ save souls from going to hell seems so narrow. Say a prayer of repentance, repeated after a preacher up the front, recite the right words, and that’s it? Now you are not going to go to hell? Now you’re a Christian? Young people intuitively know that there has to be more to it than that; the problems and issues in the world are bigger than that. The ‘what’ has to be bigger. Following Jesus today in the 21st Century has to be as revolutionary as it was in the 1st Century. It must be an all encompassing life changing adventure that will turn your life upside down. We intuitively know it must be so, and we want it to be so.

Different voices offer a wide variety of answers to the ‘what’ and ‘how’ questions. Most of the answers and conclusions are not new, in the sense that they have been outworked somewhere along the line in church history. However, most of the answers are new to a new generation. Mark Sayers summarizes a number of different fractions all of which will have their own versions of mission (what) and method (how) thus making them distinct from one another. You can see his summary here and it is defiantly worth a read.

What is a Christian?
What is the mission of the church?
What is the best way to go about fulfilling that mission?

5 Truths That Will Revolutionize Your Life

1. The Bible is truth for life.

The bible is God’s word and God’s story. It is inspired by God, not liable to deceive, and tells the only story we can confidently frame our lives in.

2. God is the Creator of the universe.

Before God spoke and created there was only God. He is the creator of all. Everything was created by God, for God, and in God. Creation was good. God is good.

3. Sin is destroying our world.

When humanity missed the mark, fell short, sinned, when Adam ate that which was forbidden, death entered the world. Sin caused a failure of relationship for humankind with God, with each other, with oneself, and with the world we live in. All sin is a failure of relationship.

4. Jesus Christ brings hope.

As we approach Easter, a celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we celebrate hope. Jesus paid the price for the sin of humanity and offers restoration to God, to each other, to oneself and with the world we live in.

5. We are to live for the Kingdom.

The Kingdom is now but not yet, we are to live that his will may be done on earth as in heaven. As we follow Christ we find purpose, meaning, fulfilment, satisfaction, answers, and truth.

Underwhelming Christianity

For a number of reasons; the reasonably anti-establishment attitude of our postmodern world, the busyness and burnout of our fast past culture, the nature of the mega church (1000 plus people), a fresh appreciation by church leaders in regards to what a Sunday service can and cannot achieve in the life of a believer, and so on, the 21st Century Church, (at least the Australasian Charismatic/Pentecostal churches I am most familiar with), has pulled back a lot on the expectation it has for its church members. Where members were once encouraged and expected to attend two services on a Sunday, attending one is now OK. Where members were often serving in multiple departments or areas of the church, one area of service is a more healthy expectation. All sorts of things have changed. I'm all for most of them. Without losing the fact that the church is central and essential to God's plan for redemption in the world; a de-institutionalisation of some aspects of our spiritual walk is a healthy thing.

What is unhealthy is a distortion of what it means to follow Christ. We cannot afford to reduce Christianity to a prayer asking for forgiveness and then leave it at that. To do this is to promote and underwhelming Christianity. A version, if it can be called that, of Christianity which is most likely not Christianity at all.

To follow Christ, to be a disciple of Christ, means a whole new way of life. It means a whole new worldview and approach to everything we do. New goals, new priorities, new purpose, new standards, new ways of measuring success, new paradigms, new attitudes, new hope; a whole new life.

An underwhelming Christianity will not draw a new generation to the things of God, it will push them away. The Millennial Generation (Gen Y) live in a world where upgrades, expansions, modifications, extra additions, add ons, and so fourth are available in every area of life from their iPods, to their facebook page, to their cars, to their own bodies. Following Christ is not an addition to ones life it is a whole new way of life. And that is the very thing about Christianity that will attract the next generation. This is the thing that I love about my faith, about following Christ, yet after living my whole life as a Christian, I think I am only just beginning to get it.

The next generation has to get it from the start.

I haven't read the book yet, but I think these guys are getting it.

It's Your Choice? $670 or $41,000,000

Living in Tauranga NZ, my electricity is provided by Trust Power, which makes me a part of the Tauranga Energy Consumer Trust (TECT). As a consumer I receive an annual gift back from the trust from the profits the company has earned.

Along with all the other TECT customers I have been asked to vote as to whether I would prefer 80% of company profit given back to customers each year and 20% to charitable causes through grants (the status quo), or would I rather 100% of the profits returned to the customer and have no more money offered to different organisations through grants.

While I, like everyone else, would appreciate a few extra dollars wherever and whenever possible, it is partly because of community grants that we have a wonderful community to live in. It would be extremely short-sighted to request 100% of the profit.

Here is the difference moving to 100% - 0% would make. I, like other individuals, would receive approx $670 more every ten years, while community projects would miss out of
$41,000,000 (yes, forty one million dollars) worth of funding every ten years. Obviously investing into our community is a far better choice.

Keep giving grants to community organisations. In the long term, as individuals we are better off with a few less dollars each year while enjoying the benefits to our city that projects funded through grants offer. I can’t believe we are voting on this? I hope that people are not short sighted and selfish in their voting, yet that tends to be how people vote.

I wonder how Tauranga will vote? What kind of a community are we?

This is an entry level example of the need to be generous rather than consumer, to chose simplicity, to think community rather than individually.