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Easter is a time for us to remember that doom and gloom can be overcome. In the same way the coronavirus with its health and economic impact on so many Australians can also in most cases be overcome. Christianity has taken a bit of a battering over the last few years and this is a good opportunity for Christians to demonstrate what loving your neighbour is all about in the broadest sense of the term as Christ used it.

Many Australians are going to need a helping hand in dealing with the impact on their health, socialisation, income, jobs and debts. There is every chance that many people will suffer very badly, that many businesses will fail and it is assured that the community will have a great deal of debt to repay over future years.

This will be a good time to reread the four Gospels and look for the ways in which Christ’s teachings of tolerance, patience, kindness and forgiveness can be applied to fellow Australians whether they are neighbours or members of Parliament, business people or government staff. There is plenty of good government policy at the moment and there will be plenty of mistakes as we work through the crisis. It is good to remember how easy it is to criticise and how difficult it is to make the right decisions that affect great numbers of people well.

For those who want to improve society there are several important rules:

Find out what your opponents want and develop good answers as to why your solutions are better.

Contact the FairGO Voterlobby and engaged them to help you with strategic political persuasion.

Use their Votergram service to take your message to all members of Parliament in the name of individual supporters of yours. You will learn from FairGO why that is so important.

Votergrams are based on the parable of the sower and you will benefit if you practice the persistence of the woman knocking on the judges door.

Jesus taught us to help others to enjoy life and he taught it in a way that fitted with life under a Roman dictatorship and domination by religious leaders. Life in Australia, in our superb democracy, is quite different. We are not so much “ruled” as governed by a committee of people who we elect to represent us. For those who apply Christian principles strategically to persuading politicians and guiding government,will enjoy great success. FairGO has been helping Christians do that for more than three decades.

 

Matthew 20:26-28

“This however is not the way it shall be among you. If one of you want to be great they must be the servant of the rest and if one of you wants to be first they must be your slave, like the son of man who did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life to redeem many people.”

How can Australian Christians do this in the way that has substantial impact? There will be many thoughts on this question, but my answer is “by influencing government”.

Governments in Australia have more resources and power than you or I will ever have. So if we can influence governments to serve the people of Australia and even specific Australians or groups of Australians, then we will have done what Jesus suggested in this passage – served them – well.

For 8 years between 1978 & 1986 I pondered how to get governments treating people decently. In July 1983 I believe I received a direct encouragement from God. Three years later, in March 1986 I launched the revolutionary computer-based Votergram service. It allowed me or any other Australian to directly send a brief 100 word message to every Member of Parliament.

It was an amazing overnight success. Governments did what I and others asked. People came to me who I had never met, about personal problems with family members and governments fixed those problems. They came with national issues and governments fixed those too.

No-one was more surprised than me. Overnight I had become a servant to many other Australians wanting governments to do something, almost always for the benefit of a third party or parties. It was a daughter needing care for a mental illness; a seriously disabled young adult son needing care interstate away from his family and near young friends; a home for disabled adults needing additional government support or forced to close; farmers needing price support.

After 34 years, that service has grown into the FairGO Voterlobby, Votergrams and the Australian Voters Network, providing a way for Christians to serve their community by influencing government to do what is needed. Those Christians can leverage the enormous resources of government to do Christian good. So many people take their suggestions to the media or public protest. which makes politicians look silly and so is counter-productive. Whereas we make it simple to nice and politely tell them within the confines of parliament so they are encouraged  and able to own the changes they make at your request.

You can personally serve individuals, communities, states and territories or Australia as a whole and even people in foreign countries, in this way. Australians influenced the ticklish question of naming “North Macedonia” and they have influenced Indian government attention to rape and abuse of women.

A strong Christian influence is important in our governments. Do not leave it to the PM or Christian  MPs, for parliament is a voting forum at all levels, where the majority rules. There are a good number of MPs who would not be swayed by a Christian leader wanting to do something that disadvantaged them. Voters who contact EVERY MP influence their thinking because elections are a matter of votes too and votes are the currency of democracy.

Votergrams are not the only way to bring Christian influence to bear on government, but they have proven to be the best because they go to every MP without any party-political connotations, without any bias caused by funding. Jesus taught us that people are more likely to respond well to those who treat them patiently, kindly and tolerantly. You can treat politicians that way by Votergram. You can do good works on a large scale with very little effort time or money because the MPs  and government will do it for you.

May God bless this work of Christian service to others.

Check out the FairGO Voterlobby website blog for 10 Handy hints for handling the corona crisis.

Christians have always taken a prime role in care of those who are ill.

But there is another way that Christians can put their faith into practice in this crisis. That is to share their Christian solutions with all Members of Parliament , state, territory or federal. They will set the path for the nation.

Australia is fortunate enough to have a Christian Prime Minister and a good few Christian politicians. But there are a good many politicians who would reject Christian teachings.

This is a time to:

Let your light shine by sending your good ideas to all Members of Parliament so they can consider and use them. Votergrams, inspired by the parable of the sower can help you do that in the most effective and economical way.
When you sow good ideas in parliament you become like the yeast in the bread.
Put serving God ahead of serving money particularly in the form of wages or profits.
Care for the sick
Go the extra mile
Look after those who have lost jobs or business income.
Love your neighbour, particularly if you can see that they are in trouble. People will not always tell you so it is a case of keeping an eye out and taking the chance to chat whenever that arises. ( without getting too close).
Resisting the urge to judge when the full circumstances may not be known.
Ask for assistance when you need it.
Avoid anger when under pressure
Extend kindness to everyone you meet because it is hard to know what pressures they may be under.
Remember the underlying concerns of young children and teenagers at school and youths at university or Tafe who may feel powerless to deal with the circumstances in which they find themselves.

Pray that God will give you the wisdom to know what to do, the courage to share it with those in power and the energy to work hard to achieve it.

Bring your Christian influence to bear on the decision-makers in our society. That is one of the roles of a Christian today that is different to the circumstances in which Jesus lived- under Roman occupation. Your governments work for you – if you make them!

 

 

Christ’s teachings prepare people for powerful political persuasion

Consider this one:- “ Ask and you  will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you.”

It has a logic of its own for many circumstances, for if you do not ask you will often not receive. If you do not seek you will rarely find. If you do not knock nobody will know to let you in.

This applies perfectly to governments in democracies. Many people are critical of politicians for being out of touch. Yet in Australia each Member of Parliament represents about 100,000 people. In the USA each Congressman represents about 600,000 people. It is obviously easier for the people to get in touch with their Parliamentarians and Congressmen than for the Parliamentarians and Congressmen to get in touch with each constituent.

If we do not ask our elected representatives to have government do what we want done, then it is extremely unlikely that they will do it. However, we have found that when people ask the politicians in the right way to do something that is good, enough will generally do it to influence government to act as is wanted.

Likewise, if we do not ask our elected representatives to help us seek ways to achieve some personal or national goals for government, we are not likely to find them by stumbling over them. If we use the power of our elected representatives to seek solutions that deliver the sort of lives that would be better for us, our communities and our nation, the MPs or Congressmen will probably help us find a way to do it.

Unless we metaphorically knock on their doors they will not even know that we exist and so will not join in dialogue with us on what should be done.

Over time we will let you know the best way to go about influencing governments to govern in a loving , caring, Christian way, for the benefit of the vast majority of people.

We don’t suggest that Christians have more or better solutions than others, but many of them do sense an obligation to make the world a better place, as do many non-Christians. Our aim is to share thoughts about how Christian teaching can improve a democratically governed country. We will be happy to hear your thoughts along those lines and post them if they sound interesting

The political power of loving, caring, Christianity.

This is a site for those who put the wellbeing of others on a par with or before their own well being and are prepared to bring a Christian influence to bear on governments in a way that benefits the vast majority.

It is not for holier-than-thou judgement on others, but for loving our family, friends and neighbours as ourselves, along with the hardest challenge of all, loving our enemies.

There is an answer to our prayers for our community, country and world – Power for Christians themselves to influence our democratic government decisions by working with all politicians, free of party-political bias. We can give you that power.

If you have ideas consistent with these we will be happy to give them space.