The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus

November 13, 2008

588

Filed under: Uncategorized — jonbirch @ 1:31 pm

this is for brunettekoala and anyone else who identified with her comment. there are a few. also ties in with the notion of ‘windowless rooms’…

startrekbig

53 Comments »

  1. stunning cartoon Jon. Many churches do what their worship to be “Out of this world” Not quite this far though! Or perhaps that feel that no one can understand them somehow makes them stand out from the rest of the world. “If we are not so different that is shows, how will people know we are different?”

    Comment by will — November 13, 2008 @ 1:48 pm

  2. I come from a background that some would call happy-clappy and I am now part of a church that might be described as a house church – we certainly believe in the importance of organic relationships and things like that. When I visit some Anglican Churches I get the feeling that somehow they are trying to move on from their boring traditions and are trying to be more contemporary but they leave me unimpressed. I suppose it’s the arrogant feeling on my part they they’re not as good as we used to be! But other Anglican Churches appear to relish their tradition and use their liturgy and rituals in a way that draws me in. This intrigues me and makes me want to learn more from these traditions that several years ago I would have condemned as at best dead. Any thoughts?

    Comment by David Derbyshire — November 13, 2008 @ 1:49 pm

  3. that buoyant loving community feeling takes constant nurturing.

    a constant commitment to fairness and collectivity.

    an openness to heartfelt honesty.

    to the fluidity of roles and effort to find out what everyone wants, so we are meeting people where their at.

    all that stuff takes work man, isn’t it easier to bore everyone silly, and pretend that heads down atmosphere is real reverence?

    of for a quick health check – “when did you last hear a chuckle during a service?”

    Comment by subo — November 13, 2008 @ 2:26 pm

  4. David – that’s why I loved Greenbelt – you saw a number of communities digging into the past to bring the traditions into the future. (I also saw a few things that made me go what the ^%$#@%^).

    I’ve been to a number of different types of church services and even though I’m a Christian, i was freaked out at my first Pentecostal healing service (then again, Fred Price was a phony): the evangelical power praise bands with the never ending repetitive lyrics bore me, a sermon that’s draped in the American flag scares me, I don’t like it when Charismatics sway into me (esp. if they are sweaty). So, you can be a Christian and still feel like an alien in a church setting unlike your own.

    Comment by Becky — November 13, 2008 @ 2:28 pm

  5. Excellent!

    Comment by Rachel — November 13, 2008 @ 2:35 pm

  6. Hi Jon,

    when you reference a comment (or commenter) in the preamble to your pictures, I wonder if you could link it to the page/comment that you’re talkking about.

    It would help me follow the thread of your thoughts.

    Cheers!

    Peace, David

    Comment by David Jeanneret — November 13, 2008 @ 2:53 pm

  7. good idea david… of course you’re assuming i can remember. :-) will try to in future.

    Comment by jonbirch — November 13, 2008 @ 3:31 pm

  8. Haha, love it!

    Comment by Razzler — November 13, 2008 @ 3:55 pm

  9. Beam me up Scotty :-)

    Comment by Miriworm — November 13, 2008 @ 4:10 pm

  10. [...] Courtesy of ASBO Jesus. [...]

    Pingback by Light Bites « If Narky, Feed Profusely — November 13, 2008 @ 4:21 pm

  11. Thats fantastic Jon as usual. But you have missed out the over enthusiastic greeker who kirk kills in the first part of the landing.

    I have a post about church meetings on my blog which descibes some of this stuff mentioned in these comments have a look at

    http://beatthedrum.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/why-we-don%e2%80%99t-do-mission-%e2%80%93-part-2-there-is-no-way-i-am-bring-my-friends-to-this/

    Comment by beatthedrum — November 13, 2008 @ 4:54 pm

  12. At this precise moment, I can identify most with the spider. But I’m not actually in a church.

    Comment by rebecca — November 13, 2008 @ 5:18 pm

  13. lol, poor red shirt.

    Comment by Jason — November 13, 2008 @ 5:46 pm

  14. [...] ASBO Jesus puts these words in the mouth of Captain Kirk of Star Trek on arriving in a church: What is… this… alien place… with it’s… strange… customs… and ways? [...]

    Pingback by Gentle Wisdom » Another Kirk on the church — November 13, 2008 @ 5:53 pm

  15. it wouldn’t be so bad if they got it wrong and thought it was a jedi temple – at least the force would be with them!

    I have to say that the window you have designed is amazing! I’ve seen alot worse and loads of the ones that are the best (apparently) only seem to come in beige and sick green)

    Comment by drew — November 13, 2008 @ 6:28 pm

  16. David @2: There is plenty of good, engaged liturgical worship to be found – See for example ‘Holy City’

    http://web.mac.com/gmaule/iWeb/H,OLY%20CITY/Home.html

    from the Wild Goose Resource Group

    Comment by Pat — November 13, 2008 @ 6:51 pm

  17. Ooops sorry – an aberrant comma crept in there:

    http://web.mac.com/gmaule/iWeb/HOLY%20CITY/Home.html

    Comment by Pat — November 13, 2008 @ 6:53 pm

  18. Hee hee hee! Thank you Jon! You gave me my first giggle of the day!!

    Comment by brunettekoala — November 13, 2008 @ 7:33 pm

  19. reminded me of this ‘demotivational poster’ i saw on someone else’s blog once

    http://echosphere.net/star_trek_insp/insp_expendability.png

    Comment by jody — November 13, 2008 @ 7:45 pm

  20. Wonderful! Thank you! Big belly laugh! :)

    But bloomin’ flip – it’s reminded me of all those SF novels where missionaries hit outer space.

    Any futurologists out there? If we do ever hit the stars, will we be out evangelising them?

    Comment by Steve Lancaster — November 13, 2008 @ 8:39 pm

  21. I have never before found myself pitying a spider ;-)

    Comment by beckyw — November 13, 2008 @ 9:47 pm

  22. Oh Jon, absolutley fantastic (as always)… however, and here I lay my geekdom wide open. Uhuru should be in a red dress, not blue :P

    Comment by Darren — November 13, 2008 @ 10:54 pm

  23. darn it darren… you are right! darn, darn, darn!!! :-)

    jody… great link! :-)

    i hoped you’d enjoy it brunettekoala. :-)

    Comment by jonbirch — November 14, 2008 @ 12:17 am

  24. is the guy in the red shirt Jesus? although I suppose many churches never really “get” Jesus…

    Comment by Joe — November 14, 2008 @ 1:16 am

  25. The red shirt guy –

    Ruth and I often put him into other dramas. The last one was spooks last week.

    “You can’t takt the whole team on the mission, where’s the guy in the red shirt who will get shot in the first scene!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

    ?

    Comment by Robb — November 14, 2008 @ 1:26 am

  26. Lovin the spider BTW!

    Comment by Robb — November 14, 2008 @ 1:42 am

  27. [...] ASBO Jesus made me stop and think (as always). [...]

    Pingback by Friday Link Love: Volume 2 « Deep Roots. Wide Branches. — November 14, 2008 @ 5:08 am

  28. But where are the clingon’s?!

    Comment by soniamain — November 14, 2008 @ 7:23 am

  29. this one reminds me of Ricky Gervais turning up in his Elvis Suit, to a church meet, in “Extras”, in his attempt to impress a beautiful catholic woman

    Comment by subo — November 14, 2008 @ 7:47 am

  30. [...] again, thank you for all the encouragement you guys have given me…whether it is making a cartoon about aliens visiting church, sending me an e-mail/ leaving a comment/tweet/text message with encouragement or feeding me [...]

    Pingback by Breaking for the weekend… « Musings of a Koala — November 14, 2008 @ 8:15 am

  31. Sonia @ 28 – Mrs Brown has been in with the toilet duck…

    I love the cartoon. But I do feel a bit ambivalent about this issue. On the one hand I do often feel bored and uninspired in church. But on the other hand there is a lot about the symbolism and the old tradition that I have a deep fondness for. And I do often chuckle in church…usually to myself, granted…and often at completely inappropriate times…

    Comment by Carole — November 14, 2008 @ 9:46 am

  32. Strangeness is not the problem. Greyness is.

    Comment by Rich — November 14, 2008 @ 10:38 am

  33. just proves you should never wear a 60’s skin tight red shirt in church. May live things up for everyone inside though.
    I prefer a breakfast club as one of my times of fellowship and I suppose that it is my ‘church’. Lots of windows there too!

    Comment by Stumpy — November 14, 2008 @ 12:15 pm

  34. Hi Jon, I guess this is kind of a request for a comic, of cause its up to you whether you want to do it or not.
    Anyway, I was thinking about people’s expectation to God’s calling. Some people have this idea that God only call people to do stuff they hate, so if you love the winter and the big city life, you will definately be called as a missionary to the most remote part of Africa.
    If we really believe that God is good, sane and loves us, it’s quite a strange expectation to have.
    But I guess the most common mis-expectation about God’s calling is that He will call us to do something “normal”.
    Which is where I look to the old testament prophets, and what God told them to do was in no way normal, predictable or boring.

    So I thought a comic about the topic could look like this:
    3 pictures with a person praying, and a voice from the sky.
    1: “Hoseas, go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry”
    2: “Elijah, confront the king who wants to kill you”
    3: “Isaiah, walk naked and barefooted for 3 years”
    and the “comment under the picture”: What will God call you to do?

    I thought about a few variations, maybe 2 pictures with “Gods calling – then and now” with Isaiah explaining that God have called him to walk around naked, and a christian explaining that God have called him to sit on his bum in church every sunday morning.

    Comment by Bo — November 14, 2008 @ 12:28 pm

  35. Yesterday (cartoon 587, comment 34) I mentioned my university’s Christian Union, which had a particular mandate for evangelism. Every three years they would carry out a Mission, a huge evangelism drive. The person who told me about the hierarchy also told me about the posters they had used for the previous mission — they had pictures of Dr Spock saying, “It’s life, but not as we know it”! It looks like we’ve come full circle. What life are the evangelists offering? What life are *we* offering?

    The unknown actor need not worry that they will “get” him. If they do, he just needs to wait for an opportune moment, and then walk away. Although I’m only speculating, because I’ve never see any figures, I think it is likely that many of the people gathered up (for want of a better expression) by the Missions ended up walking away — their seeds were planted in shallow earth. The Christian Union would have done better to prove the ground, rather then just sowing seed.

    Comment by rebecca — November 14, 2008 @ 1:23 pm

  36. brilliant – really well observed Jon =] I guess Kirk’s romantic clinch with the alien leader’s daughter is in the next scene?

    “Oh captain, save me from these dweebs”

    “I’m sorry, patricia – the prime directive prevents me from interfering with anything except your blouse”

    So having identified the problem, what is our intrepid team’s solution?

    Comment by Linus — November 15, 2008 @ 9:32 am

  37. the only solution linus, is for kirk to get his shirt ripped… just enough to reveal the correct amount of manly upper body and thus convert at least half of the aliens (the female ones) to his point of view.
    kirk played hard and loose with the prime directive… gotta love him for that. ‘you, woman. me, man. prime directive enemy to getting it on.’ kirk, the tarzan of space. :-)

    btw… re. your salient question. it’s eternal ‘biggy’ and one we will go on working out. that was a complete cop out of an answer… sorry. :-)

    hey bo. there is certainly the germ of a cartoon there. ta. :-)

    rebecca. what you said reminded me of the parable of the sower. wise words.

    Comment by jonbirch — November 15, 2008 @ 1:39 pm

  38. Ah, the curse of the “red shirt”, never more dangerous than in the above :)

    Comment by Lurch Kimded — November 15, 2008 @ 6:26 pm

  39. So the main message is never be an acolyte in a red cassock!!

    Comment by Robb — November 15, 2008 @ 6:49 pm

  40. oooh, the spidey is my fave bit!

    Comment by christine Gill — November 15, 2008 @ 8:13 pm

  41. All people who are “sound” think that that is the case ;)

    Comment by Robb — November 16, 2008 @ 2:41 am

  42. So are you an arachnatarianist, then Robb? Or maybe just antidisarachnatarian?

    Jon i don’t think what you said is a cop out – keep asking the question and keep trying to work out the answer (as well as our salvation) sounds like a good plan to me.

    The job of satire is to point out incongruity, destructiveness, broken ways of doing things. To keep asking questions. But not as an end in themselves – rather in order to provoke re-examination, repentance, change, new ideas, hope, edification and all these other good gifts.

    There’s a lot of vibrancy and love and compassion in this here asbo community, and i want to encourage ways of expressing that (so i can be blessed and edified and transformed by it). I want to be thinking about how we can encourage positive action and change in our communities (however good or bad they currently are).

    Might i suggest a cartoon that would provoke such a discussion would be a good idea. Like a new year’s resolution or something – or someone praying: “Dear God i promise to do _________ so that my brothers and sisters and i will be better equipped to reflect you”

    Tag line: fill in the blanks.

    Comment by Linus — November 16, 2008 @ 12:11 pm

  43. ps – Kirk the Tarzan of space – genius =D

    Comment by Linus — November 16, 2008 @ 12:19 pm

  44. I went to church today,

    first time in a while

    the sermon was part of a series on mission and community,
    entitled “the true fast” first lesson from Isaian 58….

    30 seconds on Isaiah (putting it into context… apparently written
    when Hezekiah was being attacked by Sennacharib.. not my memory…)

    then a couple of minutes being told how to fast and pray… some
    good ideas here… fasting from TV for example

    anyway, back to Sennarcharib (have I spelled him or spelt rite?)

    which was used as a launch pad

    cos

    “Israel was under attack and Britain is under attach”

    so we had a diatribe against all that was taking Britain to hell in
    a handcart… and apparently it was largely down to

    the demon of Political Correctness!

    (oh and the Muslims, many thousands of whom, he asserted
    wanted the destruction of our way of life… and someone let this
    guy preach! But, of course to accuse him of Racism would only
    prove that I was under the demon of political correctness.. sigh)

    it went downhill from there…

    hard to believe but true.

    I’ve never walked out of a church serivice, and only my commitment
    to belonging to that church family kept me in there…

    sign, I’m an evangellybaby, but the so-and-sos have stollen my
    faith from me and made it something completely different…

    So, I’m too evangellybaby to be a true ASBOer

    and too ASBO to be an evangellybaby

    but hey…. light dawns… oh joy…

    I can piss off everyone, now that must be worth the award of
    an ASBO?

    Comment by Caroline Too — November 16, 2008 @ 3:10 pm

  45. Caroline Too – been there and heard that. I actually saw a church magazine article which siad “I was reading a book on evangelism and then I got to the point where it turns out it was all about Muslims. Why would I want to evangelise muslims [daily mail type continuation.......]“. It was bizarre!

    Comment by Robb — November 17, 2008 @ 12:07 am

  46. Caroline Too (#44) — a member of my church once said to me that if somebody walks out in disgust then we must be doing something right.

    I beg to differ — the nearest I have ever got to walking out in disgust on someone (admittedly it was not at a service, but at a seminar) was when the speaker said that wives were “beneath” their husbands. The only reason I didn’t walk out was because I wanted to give him a chance to redeem himself — otherwise I knew I would remember him forever for saying that wives were beneath their husbands.

    He didn’t redeem himself, and this is how I now remember him!

    Is there a message here? Perhaps that if you’re prepared to say something publicly, you also need to be prepared to defend it.

    Comment by rebecca — November 17, 2008 @ 1:49 pm

  47. hey caroline too… well, i see you as one of the pillars in this asbo thing. because i trust you, because i have a sense of where you are coming from and i find it to be genuine and honest. in my mind, you are one of the first things that springs to mind when i think ‘asbo’ (not in the ‘criminal’ sense :-) ) these days. i value immensely your experience and the thoughtful way you approach things… and i’ll be happy to bet that i’m speaking on behalf of many others too.
    asbo seems to be read by caths, prozzies, evo’s, fundies, libs, cons, nones, comps, baps, meths, freebies, all sorts… so i don’t know what an asbo’er is… but you are certainly one in my eyes. :-)

    for my part, ‘i’m a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll’ if i may quote our mormon brother and sister donny and marie osmond. :-)

    robb, caroline too… i have also seen this wickedness done in the name of god, on this and other subjects. sometimes i’m so ashamed of what goes on in churches that i can forget all the good that is a massive part of what church is at it’s best. my best childhood friend was muslim, his family were great. christians and muslims living next door to one another, some of the happiest days of my life. :-)

    Comment by jonbirch — November 17, 2008 @ 1:52 pm

  48. …and maybe sometimes it is good to walk out? i don’t know, just asking.

    Comment by jonbirch — November 17, 2008 @ 1:54 pm

  49. What I’ve done is write to the vicar outlining what I found objectionable in the sermon. I copied in the preacher, so he knows what I’ve said.

    I then wrote him and his wife another email, inviting them to supper, so that we could get to know and enjoy eachother.

    Who knows where we’ll get to from here.

    Jon (#47) :blush: oh I think that I’ll go an hide away, I can’t handle nice things being said to me! :-)

    Comment by Caroline Too — November 17, 2008 @ 8:13 pm

  50. #46 Rebecca — about people walking out angry:

    It seems to me that if you preach the gospel as Jesus did, you’re going to make some pharisees pretty pissed off.

    And it also seems that if you preach a narrow-minded racist gospel, then it is no gospel at all, its going to make Jesus (and Paul, and a whole host of other people) angry.

    So maybe people leaving is not the sign on wrongdoing OR rightdoing — just the sign of DOING.

    I’m a pastor in the U.S. and I just try and keep my eye on who’s going out the door and why their leaving.

    Comment by Joe — November 18, 2008 @ 12:55 am

  51. hi joe, nice to meet you. :-)

    hey caroline too… you’ll have to stay hidden then, as there’s more where that came from! :-) btw… nice one on the letter front… and dinner… nice touch.

    Comment by jonbirch — November 18, 2008 @ 3:23 am

  52. [...] it difficult to engage. Not helped by the fact I was stifling giggles thinking about Jon’s most recent ASBO cartoon. And thinking about how I really wanted to be at Powerpoint. It was having drinks in the bar with [...]

    Pingback by The Weekend « Musings of a Koala — November 19, 2008 @ 9:51 pm

  53. Little wonder that Captain Kirk coined the phrase ‘Beam me up Scotty!

    Comment by Bob Garbett — November 28, 2008 @ 4:49 am


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