Someone's house moved back on the section ready for an earthquake damaged foundation to be replaced.
Back on a new foundation and freshly painted. Waiting for the finishing touches.
Some Christians have attributed the earthquake to God by suggesting that he is shaking the church. They draw attention to the name of the city and suggest that God is shaking Christ’s church. There are a couple of problems with this view. Hammering the entire city to speak to the church seems a bit unfair. I would challenge those who hold this view to tell the mother of three living in Aranui whose house has just been trashed that God did this to speak to his church.
God destroyed your home as a sign for the church.
That seems too glib and does not sound like my God.
God sent this earthquake to wake up his church throughout the world.
This view makes the people of the world suffer for the sake of the church. The gospel says it will be the other way round. Christians are supposed to suffer for the benefit of the world.
God does shake the church from time to time.
God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness (Heb 12:10).When his church falls asleep, God shakes it awake. However, he has a very effective way to shake the church without hurting the people of the world. Throughout the New Testament, God sent persecution when he needed to shake and refine the church.
Now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith (1 Pet 1:6,7).
On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem (Acts 8:1).
Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out… The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord (Acts 11:19-21).God uses persecution to strengthen and refine his church, not earthquakes. This allows him to purify the church without punishing those outside the church.
The Holy Spirit is also skilled at speaking. God sent him to lead his people into the truth. Millions of Christians are listening for the voice of the Spirit. Thousands of pastors and prophets listen for his voice each week to bring a message to his people. If the Holy Spirit wants to speak to the church, he is capable of speaking directly. He does not need to speak through an earthquake in a distant city named after a college at Oxford University.
I have come through the worst earthquake to strike this country.Having survived a serious earthquake, Christians could easily slip into a risky complacency about the future. This is not the time to be complacent. God is trying to get his people prepared in advance. He is trying to build a spiritual army of hard-core Christians, who can work together with the Holy Spirit to release his kingdom on earth. It would be sad if our experience during the earthquake lulled us into believing that things will be fine, if we carry on as we are.
It was scary,
but we survived.
We can cope with anything
that life throws at us.
A related view to my previous post suggests that God is shaking the people of Christchurch to open hearts to the gospel. This view is wrong. The destruction of the earthquake does not look like God’s handiwork. He is a creator. The earthquake is a destroyer. Ascribing such destruction to God is bizarre. Traumatic events are an ineffective method for bringing people to faith. Disasters often push people further away from God. After the first earthquake, church attendance in Christchurch increased for a while but quickly returned to normal. The same happened in America after 9/11. The Holy Spirit can convict people of sin far more effectively than an earthquake.
I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin (John 16:7,8).
The best way to change human lives is to reach into human hearts. The Holy Spirit is an expert on working in human hearts.
God sometimes uses events to shake the world, but this is only effective if his people are ready to move with the Holy Spirit and minister to those who are shaken. If the church is not ready, shaking a city does far more harm than good. The Church in Christchurch was not prepared to minister in a disaster. Some good stuff has been done by many churches, but Christians have been thin on the ground in the places where people are hurting. If God was going to shake Christchurch for the gospel, the timing was wrong for the church.
God cannot transform society by whacking it over and over with a big stick. Belting it harder and harder will not produce repentance. Repentance is a work of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit needs Christians to carry him in their hearts into the world.
When the harvest is ripe, God needs harvesters. Earthquakes cannot do what the harvesters are not ready to do (John 9:37).
The earthquake has released awful fear and terror among the people of Christchurch. Many will be emotionally crippled for years. This leaves them vulnerable to evil, and hardens their heart to the gospel. The earthquake might have produced as many new alcoholics as there are new Christians.
Spirit of fear and terror have been able to make their home in our Christchurch. The earthquake has given these principalities and powers a stronghold and they will not leave until they are forced out of the city.
The Holy Spirit only intervenes where he is invited. The forces of evil have no such scruples. They push in uninvited whenever people are made vulnerable by shock and fear. This means that the forces of evil are often better placed than the Holy Spirit to take advantage of traumatic events.
The earthquake has increased confidence in political power. The people of New Zealand have watched their political leaders declaring peace and calm on television and seen them rescuing those in trouble and promising to restore broken dreams. Faith in political power has been boosted. Fear of the future and faith in the state is a dangerous mix. When fear and dread are pervasive, and faith and trust in human government is widespread, the accumulation and concentration of political power is easy. These trends increase resistance to the Kingdom of God.
Many Christians are suggesting that the earthquakes were a genuine act of God. This takes different forms but the most common view is that God has judged Christchurch and is punishing its wickedness. God’s judgments are always redemptive, so when he judges a nation or city, he warns in advance through a prophet. The prophet describes the sins that are upsetting God and explains their consequences. They prophet tells the people what they must do to avert the judgment, so they can change their behaviour. When Jonah prophesied to Nineveh, the people repented.
There are three problems with this view.
When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened (Jonah 3:10).
No prophets warned Christchurch that earthquakes were coming. This event does not meet the criteria for a judgment of God.
Christchurch has plenty of sin, but it does not seem to be any worse than many other cities and it is better than many others, so there is no reason why God should single it out.
If God caused the earthquake, it hard to explain why Christians died. They would be collateral damage, which seems an odd way for God to work.
In September 1010, Christchurch was struck by an earthquake that measured 7.1 on the Richter scale. Although many buildings collapsed, no one was killed and very few were injured. A second serious earthquake struck Christchurch in February 2011, causing serious damage to buildings and took nearly two hundred lives. Jesus said there will be no signs for the second coming. Life will be going on as normal. No one knows in advance when Jesus will return. Jesus Big Prophecy was a warning about the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. The disciples heard Jesus say that the stones in the temple would be cast down and had asked when this would happen. Jesus responded with a warning of events that would occur before the fall of Jerusalem. Earthquakes were one of these signs. The city of Pompeii was severely damaged by an earthquake in AD 63. Others took place in Crete, Smyrna, Miletus, Laodicea, Colossae, Rome and Judea. Jesus prophecy has already been fulfilled, so it is not a reference to the second coming. Earthquakes have occurred throughout history, so anyone assuming they are a sign of the second coming will be continually confused because the second coming is always coming.
Christians have made various suggestions about the cause of the earthquake. I will discuss these in light of the categories defined my previous series of posts.
1. Sign of the Second Coming
One notion that we have to get out of the way first is the common idea that earthquakes are a sign that the second coming is near. This view, which is widespread among Christians, is based on Jesus big prophecy.Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains (Matt 24:7,8).
There are several reasons why the usual interpretation of this passage is wrong.
The earthquake has brought a huge flow of generosity and caring. The numbers of voluntary groups providing assistance have been astounding.
Yesterday morning as we drove home after filling our large container of water, we saw a group of people cooking breakfast on a street corner. We stopped to see them and they gave us sausages and eggs to eat. They were a church group, who had come in from outside of the city to bless those in need. The girl that I spoke with had flown down from Hamilton in the North Island with five others to assist for a week.
Soon after we got home, another group of volunteers called round to distribute boxes of groceries that have donated. We got muesli, noodles, bottled water, chocolate biscuits, fresh fruit, cans of fruit, baby wipes (really handy when water is short), sanitizers and gloves.
The day before, a lady called in with some jam and biscuits she had prepared.
Last weekend, hot meals were brought into the local park by helicopter and delivered round the streets while still warm. They had all been cooked by volunteers. They were handing out bottled water as well.
The next day the army was handing out meals from that had been prepared by volunteers to people who turned up at the water tanks. They handed out shortbread as well.
Several thousand students have carted silt out of thousands of homes and back yards. This is backbreaking dirty work, but it was all done for free.
If you leave bottles by your mailbox, people driving around with tanks on trailers will fill them with water.
Some people have brought in crates of bread and left it on a street corner for people to help themselves. Others have gone door to door deliver bread and water.
People’s response is interesting too. Some people are still complaining about the lack of help. Others grab everything that is going, even if they do not need it. However, most are just really grateful and are blessed that people care about their plight.
I am also surprised at the number of people who refuse help. Some have slogged away on their carting silt, because they are unwilling to pick up a phone and ask for the students to help.
I have been really impressed with the level of generosity and willingness to get on and do something.
Electricity has been restored to 95% of houses in Christchurch, but we are in the 5% still without electricity after twelve days (and no running water or sewerage). I feel honoured to be in this select group, because I presume they decided that the people living in our neighbourhood are tough enough to cope for a few more days.
The street next to ours has had electricity restored, so it is getting close. The lines company says that 99 percent of households will have their electricity restored by Monday evening. A couple more days is neither here nor there.
The construction companies have now started restoring streets. The photos show the arterial route that our street comes off. The first is the the street just after the earthquake. It is starting to look much better. Our street still has some huge judder bars. They are also beginning to remove some of the humps and holes. The last photo shows the effect.
The politicians, town planners and guardians of heritage buildings are on the radio and television discussing the future of Christchurch. Their views can be summed up in the following statement. “We must decide what kind of Christchurch we want.” What they are really saying is that they want to decide what kind of Christchurch we want.
What they do not realise is that the shape of a city is not decided by the politicians and planners, but by the people and businesses of a city. As they make millions of decisions, the future city will be formed.
People will decide, if they want to live in Christchurch, or move away. I am staying, because this is where I am called, but many will move away. Homeowners will decide what to do with their homes.
The owners of destroyed buildings will decide what to do with them in (conjunction with their insurance companies).
Businesses will decide if they want to stay in Christchurch. Many will decide to leave the Central Business District (CBD). Lock-downs during a crisis make it a risky place to do business. In the past businesses needed to be concentrated in the centre to ease communications. With modern transport and communications, there is very little to be gained from being based in the CBD I suspect that most manufactures and many office-based businesses will decide to re-establish in locations where they are not surrounded by risky buildings and risks of costly shutdowns. Some will go to the suburbs temporarily, but decide they like it there.
Christchurch people decided long ago that they prefer shopping in suburban malls, so they are unlikely to go back to the central city for shopping now. Many retailers will leave the CBD and take their businesses to where the people want to be.
Christchurch may become a centre-less city. More and more business activity may be pushed back out to the edges and suburbs, but be joined together by communications networks. This may be a better model for a modern city.
The hierarchical-control model has everything clustered at the centre. A more Christian model is decentralised but joined together in networks. If the Holy Spirit is at the centre, that is enough..
There is one important ingredient that the politicians and planners have left out of their discussions. God has a purpose for Christchurch. Men like Robert Godley who were involved in the planning of and founding of the city came here in response to a God’s calling to advance the Kingdom of God. They believed that they were establishing something specific for him. That vision still stands and will in the end carry more weight than the speculations of the politicians and planners.
I am intrigued by the difference between the style of government and business. Everything that central government and city council officials do is accompanied by a media release or news conference, whereas businesses seem to just get on and do it. I suppose it is because business owners and managers are motivated by getting a task done, whereas politicians are motivated by public approval.
I do not know what it was like in the central city, but here in the suburbs most of the things that really made a difference were done provided by businesses:
Business often gets a bad name in New Zealand, but I really appreciate the ability of these businesses to get things done
This supermarket in the earthquake zone was open two days after the earthquake, with plenty of bottled water. They certainly know how to manage a supply chain.
Yesterday our street was a hive of activity. Two excavators, one loader and five trucks worked away all day. The street is now clear of silt. We still do not have electricity, water or sewerage, but it feels really good to have or tree-lined street back. We will not have any trouble with speeding cars, as we now have permanent judder bars.
The last photo is our restored street. Thanks Mr Taggart.
All we need is a shower of rain to wash it clean.
Last night we went for a walk through an area close by that was hit badly in the September quake. They have been hit much harder this time. There are huge piles of silt everywhere. Lots of carpet has been chucked outside, which is a sure sign that their foundations are cracked and the liquefaction has come up into the house. One man told me he has two cracks right through the centre of his house. The largest is two inches wide. These houses are only a couple of years old, with big mortgages. No doubt insurance will cover the cost of rebuilding or repairs, but it must be hugely distressing for the people who live there.
The house in the photo is only two years old. I never liked the colour of the bricks when it was being built, but it now looks horrifying. The photo is a bit deceiving, but the fence is vertical, so the house is tilted sadly to the right.
I have been silenced by the second Christchurch earthquake.
I was acutally in Wellington in meetings for my work, when the earthquake struck, but my wife was at home. I flew back to Christchurch 24 after the quake struck. All my family and friends are safe.
Our house only has minor damage. A couple of doors that will not shut.
We have no electricity, no water, no sewage, no internet and intermitent telephone, so life will be interesting for the next few weeks.
Our street looks like a four-wheel drive track with huge humps and big holes and silt everywhere.
We had half a tonne of silt in our back yard. Liquifaction that came up out of ground. An army of university students arrived this morning. Ten students armed with shovels and wheel barrows carted out the silt and put in a heap on the street. Contractors with trucks and loaders are carting it away.
Our fridge emptied onto the floor. And the walk-in pantry flowed out like Niagra falls. All crockery fell on the floor too.
Thank you all for your prayers.
