Out and back

The news is wretched at the moment, which is why I got a bit gushy this morning when, at 9.35 our time, a small group of humans sat on top of a controlled explosion and rattled off the Earth.

The mission is Artemis II. For the first time in over fifty years (outside the living memory of most of us), people are on their way out beyond low Earth orbit, tracing a long curve towards the Moon and back again. It’s a journey out into the deep dark, and, thank goodness, a planned return.

And it is happening, of all weekends, at Easter.

Which is interesting, because Easter is also about a journey out beyond the place no one comes back from, followed by a return that changes everything.

The Christian claim has always been quite specific. Not just that Jesus died, nor even that he lives on in some vague, spiritual sense, but that he went through death itself and came back again. He did so bodily, in public and as a matter of historical record.

The New Testament writers reach for language like “firstfruits” and “forerunner”. It is the language of someone going ahead of others, opening a path, proving something can be done. Before that, death is a one-way trip. Much discussed, widely feared, but with no verified return journeys. Then suddenly, there is one.

A loop out beyond the far side, and back again.

That, I think, is part of why Easter generates the kind of joy it does. Easter does not trade in vague optimism, nor a stoic stiff upper lip. If the tomb is empty then the worst thing is not, in fact, final.

Artemis II, for all its brilliance, is a rehearsal. A proving mission. It does not settle humanity on the Moon, nor solve our long-term future among the other planets.

But it does something psychologically and practically significant. It makes the journey thinkable again. Once it has been done, it sits there in the realm of the possible.

That’s what Easter means too. If Jesus has indeed been swallowed by death and punched his way out, then he can take us through that same exit wound. Which means you do not have to face that dark alone, or guess at what lies beyond it.

Someone has already gone ahead of you. Someone who knows the way back.

And this weekend, he calls you to follow.

Grace and Peace,

Steve

Image credit: NASA/JSC/Goddard

A Full Tank

There are few things more capable of producing low-grade national anxiety than the phrase “strategic petroleum reserve”. It sounds important. It sounds like the sort of thing you’d like to assume someone competent is handling so we can think about other things.
 
And yet, here we are, every major news site in Australia throwing up explainer articles about how many days of fuel Australia has left, where it’s stored, and whether “supply chain resilience” is code for “we’re cutting it a bit fine”.
 
It’s all very modern. And also very ancient.
 
Because underneath the technical language is a simple, human question, “are we going to be ok?”
 
You can feel how quickly the conversation slides from barrels of oil into the territory of dread. None of this is really about petrol – it’s about peace of mind.
Nations, like people, don’t cope well with the idea that we might be more fragile than we look and so we build reserves – personally, we make bigger barns (Luke 12:16-21), nationally we stockpile, hedge, and diversify supply.
 
Jesus once told a story an oil shock. In Matthew 25:1-13 ten bridesmaids were waiting for a wedding, each with a lamp. Five bring extra oil and five don’t. The delay comes. The night stretches on. Eventually, the difference between them isn’t self-confidence or intention or sincerity it was whether they actually have enough oil when it matters.
 
It’s a slightly uncomfortable story for a culture that prefers optimism to readiness. We tend to assume things will work out. That there will be enough. That we can always borrow a little more when we need it.
 
But Jesus’ point is sharper than that.
 
There are some things you can’t outsource. Some forms of readiness that can’t be borrowed at the last minute. Some kinds of security that have to be settled beforehand. Which raises a question that no strategic reserve can answer.
 
What are you running on?
 
Most of us have an internal fuel source. It might be competence. Or reputation. Or being needed. Or the comforting sense that we are, on balance, doing fine.
 
And in ordinary times, that fuel does the job. The engine turns over. Life moves along. We don’t think too hard about how much is left in the tank until something interrupts the supply.
It’s when we face a diagnosis, a conflict, a failure that can’t be spun, or a season where the usual reassurances don’t quite reach –  then suddenly, the question becomes urgent.
 
The Christian claim is not that you should try harder to build a bigger personal reserve. It’s that, in Jesus, you are invited into a different kind of economy altogether.
 
Not one where your security depends on how well you’ve stockpiled your own resources, but one where your life is held secure in someone else’s abundance. The New Testament keeps circling the idea that in Christ his life, his righteousness, his standing with the Father is not a limited supply that might run out if demand spikes. It is, rather scandalously, a gift the eternal God gives infinitely to his children.
 
Which means the deepest question is not “have I stored enough?” but “am I drawing from the right source?”
 
Because the real danger is not that you will run out of your own reserves. That was always going to happen. The real danger is trusting a fuel source that was never designed to carry the weight of your life in the first place.
 
Jesus’ story about the lamps is not ultimately a call to anxious stockpiling. It is a call to be ready for him. To have your life anchored in him. To be found, when the moment comes, not scrambling to borrow what cannot be borrowed, but already belonging to the bridegroom who has arrived.
 
Which is a very different kind of security. Our politicians and our press will keep worrying about reserves. Sensibly so. It matters. We can be secure even if the bowsers run dry because of what he has already safeguarded.

Grace and Peace,

Steve

The internet is a terrible youth ministry

A curious thing has been happening in classrooms in the last few years.

Teachers report that boys are asking questions that sound less like year 9 maths and more like the comments section under a YouTube video titled “10 reasons feminism destroyed civilisation.” Some refuse to listen to female teachers. Others bait them with rehearsed talking points. A few have even taken to barking at female teachers.

This week a new Australian guide for schools was released to help teachers deal with the phenomenon. Researchers say the influence of the so-called “manosphere” – a loose online ecosystem of influencers, podcasts, crypto grifts, forums and social media accounts promoting aggressive versions of masculinity – is now clearly spilling into the classroom.

And as if on cue, Louis Theroux has just released a new Netflix doco called Inside the Manosphere, in which he wanders, very politely, into this world of influencers who promise to teach young men the secret code of masculinity.

At its heart the manosphere offers a simple proposition to boys and young men:

The reason your life isn’t working the way you wanted is because the world has been rigged against you – and here’s how to take it back – not for everyone, just for you.

In a confusing world, that message has obvious appeal.
Young men today are navigating contradictory expectations. Add in a few disappointments – loneliness, rejection, stalled ambitions – and suddenly strangers on the internet who choose the faux-familiar title “bro” offer a neat explanation.

It’s not you. It’s women, or society, …or something. And the algorithm is only too happy to keep serving up more of the same.
There’s something fascinating about movements like this. They tend to begin with a genuine problem.

Many boys do feel adrift.
Male loneliness is real and getting worse.
Confusion about masculinity is real.

But grievance movements rarely solve the problem they diagnose. Instead, they redirect the pain somewhere else. In this case, the solution offered to struggling young men is not maturity or strength pressed into service – but resentment. And resentment is a disordered emotion. It can never deliver – there’s always a bigger boss over the horizon who’s holding you back.

Christianity has always offered a very different account of manhood.
Not domination.
Not grievance.
Not proving yourself.

Instead, the defining picture of masculinity in the New Testament is… Jesus washing feet the night before his execution.

Inalienable strength pressed into service.

Not exactly TikTok bait, but it contains a revolutionary idea: strength is shown not in control over others, but in self-giving love. The gospel begins with a truth that the manosphere cannot tolerate: You are not the hero of the story.

But it immediately follows with something far better: You are deeply loved by the true hero of the story.

And that reframing is unshackling. If your identity is secure in Christ, the gospel displaces the need to dominate anyone to feel significant. You’re free to serve. Free to listen. Men are free to honour women rather than fear or use them.

In other words: free to become the kind of free man the internet says it can make but never manages to.

One final thought: One of the most revealing things about the manosphere is how religious it feels. It has its prophets, conversion stories, secret knowledge and its vision of salvation.

What it doesn’t have is grace. Which means every young man who enters that world eventually discovers the same thing: you’re still not enough. You just need to rise earlier, grind harder, dominate more, win bigger.

But what if there was a community built around service of one another, powered by a humble God. A community where men and women could be vulnerably known by one another. A community where young men have ready access to older men who want their good. A community where we admit our failures and celebrate our hard-won restoration.

That’s the kind of counter-formational community that might be an antidote to the stranger bros online. Please take a moment to pray for our youth leaders and give thanks for church – it really is wonderful.

Grace and Peace,

Steve

Citizens of where, exactly?

It’s been a heavy news week. In Victoria, a so-called “sovereign citizen” murdered two police officers—a dreadful act with an ideology that feels like it’s been imported from the more combustible corners of America’s internet, but which is disturbingly homegrown. Meanwhile, in Canberra and across all the state capitals, we’re bracing for a “March for Australia” this Sunday, billed as a patriotic gathering but reportedly shaping up to be a far-right rally with the usual cocktail of grievance, nationalism, and suspiciously large flags.

There’s a thread running through both stories: a simmering anger about identity, belonging, and authority. Who gets to tell me what to do? Who am I really loyal to? Sovereign citizens claim they’re not bound by government laws; marchers on Sunday will wave flags proclaiming they’re the “true” Australians. Both stories hum with the anxiety of people desperate to define themselves and their place in the world, and suspicious of anyone else trying to do it for them.

It’s a bit too easy to scoff at conspiracists or cringe as we realise that the impulse that made the White Australia policies of the last century have not been as vanquished as we thought. But the truth is, all of us are trying to settle the same questions: Who am I? Whose rule am I living by? Where do I belong? These are deeply spiritual questions, and the gospel has something profound to say about them.

When Paul wrote to the Philippians, he said something that would have been startling to his Roman readers:

“Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Phil. 3:20)

To a Roman citizen, that was radical. Roman Citizenship was a golden ticket; it shaped your entire identity. Paul, a Roman citizen himself, was saying: even that’s not ultimate. Christians belong first and foremost to Jesus. Our primary passport is stamped with the cross, not the Southern Cross.

That changes how we think about power and authority, too. Sovereign citizens reject governmental authority entirely. Christians don’t—we respect government as God’s good gift (Romans 13:1-7) but we also remember that no government is ultimate. Christ is king, and every other authority is temporary. And that’s good news: you don’t have to pin your hopes or your identity to Canberra, Washington, Beijing—or even your own defiant independence.

The gospel sets us free from the exhausting scramble to carve out our own sovereignty. You are already profoundly known, deeply loved, and permanently “at home” in Christ. And that makes us, ironically, the best kind of citizens: people who can live at peace, love our neighbours, honour leaders, and stand against evil—because our citizenship isn’t fragile. It’s secure.

So, as some segment of Australia marches and shouts and fumes this weekend, maybe Christians can quietly model something better: a calm confidence in the King who doesn’t need defending, and a deep love for the neighbours who don’t yet know that their true citizenship could be in heaven too.

grace and peace 

Steve

When life gives you Norwegian Cargo Ships

My favourite story from this week happened yesterday. A Norwegian man woke up after a gentle thud outside to find a 135-metre cargo ship wedged in his garden.

Apparently, strong winds and loose moorings helped this sea giant drift across a fjord and gently (miraculously?) beach itself on his property. No one was hurt. No major damage. Just a man in his slippers blinking at a barnacled vessel where his rhubarb used to be.

It’s the kind of surreal story that feels like it should be a metaphor. So, let’s make it one.

Because doesn’t life sometimes feel exactly like that? You’re going about your business—feeding the cat, putting on the kettle—and then bam, a cargo ship of – what? Disappointment, diagnosis, or drama parks itself right on your lawn. Uninvited. Immovable. A sculptural reminder of how little control we really have over our lives.

And yet—here’s the curious gift—these interruptions can also become holy ground.

Throughout Scripture, the people of God are constantly interrupted: Abraham gets told to pack up and go; Mary gets a surprise angel; Saul gets knocked off his horse. It’s in the uninvited, unexpected arrivals that God most often does something new.

Jesus, too, is an interrupter. He sidles up to fishermen, tax collectors, and the terminally ill, not with a scheduled appointment, but with a disruptive grace that says: “Follow me.” “Get up.” “Be free.”

I don’t know about you, but I am conscious, whenever I share the gospel with someone in conversation that this is not a small thing I’m sharing with them. It’s going to require a life reorientation. If they trust in Jesus, they’ll be inviting someone good, yes – but un-tame into their lives.

So maybe the question isn’t how do I get rid of this ship? but what might God be doing with it?

When Jesus turns up—whether in someone’s life for the first time, or in ours again and again—he doesn’t just ask for a corner of the garden. He asks to take up space. To change the landscape. And while that might be disconcerting, even inconvenient, it’s also the beginning of redemption.

Because in the gospel, every interruption—every unexpected arrival—can become a doorway to grace.

grace and peace,

Steve