When I met Tim at MCF (Melbourne Christian Fellowship) in the late 1990s he was a really nice young guy from Sydney, brimming with confidence and friendliness.
But sometime around the 2000s he succumbed to the dark side, from everything I’ve seen and everything I’ve heard.
He’s played major roles in Simon’s miseries and other marriage bannings and such. And treacherously dealt with and shunned his in-laws who were friends of mine.
But of course, there were signs in the early 2000s. Being presentable and confident and friendly, and newly married, he was an ideal choice for apprentice eldership.
But I remember the first time I heard him speak, in the early 2000s.
It smacked of treachery, lack of wisdom, harshness and novice-ness.
All done in the nicest, Tim-like way of course.
He was talking to the kids at a youth conference, and then later to us adults, about laying down our lives for the brethren. Of course. MCF’s greatest hits. Right when the elders were destroying my life (at threat of loss of salvation).
His approach was to rubbish the humanity of any human endeavor . . whether it be sports or technical or academic.
I thought: How depressing for our young people? How unwise? How sucking up.
Nobody else had ever criticized so many fields of endeavor.
Named them.
Technology. Business. He described people (like me) trying to become ‘Whizzes’ as instead, just being ‘Wheeeeees’. Whatever that meant. But it was derogatory to our fields of endeavor and our effort and our God-given inspiration and talent.
Just as kids were choosing careers they were being taught it was all pointless and no point working hard at it.
What a DOWNER!
Sport. He rubbished the 2000 Olympics and Olympians. What is so good about being able to run fast? What’s the point. He got lots of laughs describing ‘winning a race by 10 milliseconds’. So what? he said.
Of course we all know we can’t take anything with us.
In comparison to our salvation by Jesus it is all dung.
But does that mean while we are here we rubbish everything? Certainly not. But MCF is all about overdoing everything.
Instead, life is to be lived folks. While we are here.
We work. We steward. We live. We succeed. We fail. We love. We have interests. If not then we are not even alive.
If we are not human first we are nothing. MCF tried to take humanity from us despite us being God’s most cherished creation!
Some people love sport. Some business. Some technoogy or arts or sciences or medicine or hospitality. Do we need to degrade their interests and contributions?
The Book of Acts continually honours people’s vocations and work ethic. Think the textiles workers, soldiers, tent makers, home makers and so on. Even Ecclesiastes points out the value of work and the joy of it despite it’s ultimate demise eternally:
So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot.
Eccl 3:22
But at MCF/BCF we can’t even enjoy our lot. They ban us from the line of work we want to do!
Of course this was all after Tim Maurice’s big attempt at being a Whiz in advertising failed. So now rubbish everyone else’s plans.
Tim Maurice.
What a novice, my friend.
It’s not too late to turn back to the light side, apologize to all those you have harmed Tim. Fancy thinking you can decide who gets married to who and when! How delinquent.
Open Letter to Melbourne Christian Fellowship (MCF) 