17 June, 2010 (09:20) |
Walk as children of the light…seeking to know and do what pleases the Lord.”
(Ephesians 5.9,10)
(Paul in March 2010)
“The finished beard is merely a byproduct of a much more lofty victory. The anticipation of the growing beard and the possibilities of what a bearded future means is the greatest reward any one man can give to those he comes in contact with.” - Benjamin P Roberts. This is profound and as a semi-bearded man I can fully relate!
“I finally saw Avatar and I find it hard to believe that so many Christians took it as a challenge to their faith rather than to their patterns of consumption!”
The ecclesiological journey that the most successful missionary agencies made a couple of generations back is a journey urgently awaiting the rest of us in God’s churches. The insights and practices of agencies we used to regard as peripheral to church-life now need to be brought into the very heart of our Christian praxis.”
“‘Speaking the truth in love’ is more than telling the truth with a good intention. It’s about the ability to create a relational context in which truthful conversations can happen.”
Exceptional churches may sometimes be inspiring, but it is not logical to treat them as our model. My question must not be ‘How can I get me some of that?’ but rather, ‘What does the Lord want me to do here?’
16 May, 2010 (14:17) | No comments
A young pastor recently asked me what he could do to make himself a better pastor of people…
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2 May, 2010 (13:45) | 2 comments
Two famous leaders: Apostle Paul (Rublev) & Teresa of Avila (by Carole Odell)
Having previously issued a provocation to think again, I now want to spell out my own view on a complex topic.
In the circles I have moved in a lot of people seem to have got stuck on the fact that NT “Eldership” appears to be male… Read more »
2 May, 2010 (13:35) | No comments
We in the churches often like to think of ourselves as something of a counter-culture, somewhat removed in thinking and values from the culture of our surrounding society. And in many ways that is how it should be. But the truth may be more complex… Read more »
2 May, 2010 (13:32) | No comments
On the day of Pentecost the Apostle Peter gives his soundbite summary of how to become a Christian. The flow of Acts and the NT letters strongly suggests that Peter’s summary is placed where it is as a kind of template for the missional church. Central to Peter’s proclaimed process of becoming a Christian are the words “and be baptised.” The words of Jesus’ Great Commission still ringing in the Church’s ears, there is baptism in its proper context. Over the centuries that have followed we in the churches have extracted baptism from its original context and inadvertently neutered it….
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2 May, 2010 (13:31) | 1 comment
My 17 years in larger churches overlapping with 13 in smaller, missional churches continue to shape my understanding of the proper role of elders and senior pastors in the churches of God. The phrase Senior Pastor goes against the grain for many - firstly because the word “senior” seems to argue with the word “servant” which Jesus makes the template of Christian ministry - and secondly because it conjures up an image of being at the top of the corporate tree in the realm of church-governance. One assumes that one who is called a “Senior Pastor” must surely throw around more weight than a mere “Pastor.” My experience suggests otherwise… Read more »
2 May, 2010 (13:01) | No comments
Phyllis Tickle’s endorsements: Read more »
28 April, 2010 (14:00) | No comments
At a rate never before tracked by statisticans people are exiting our congregations, while smaller, more grassroots expressions of church are proliferating. Even to the most casual observer the statistics of church-life in the West are signalling that the congregation appears to be receding from its central place in the Christian landscape. So does that mean that the big churches have had their day? Read more »
28 April, 2010 (13:58) | 1 comment
No, this isn’t tirade against the insensitivities of empire-sponsored missionaries in British colonies in the C19th or US dependencies in the C20th. With our attention on the cross-cultural challenges of reaching even our immediate neigbours, our thinking has become very tied up with finding the best missional method. We want to reach and not estrange; to befriend and not distance, We are right to concern ourselves with the whole question of missional method. But my thoughts today turn to the question of our message itself.
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28 April, 2010 (13:57) | No comments
“How can there be so many experts at a time of searching and uncertainty?”
I love talking with friends and partners around the world in the missional scene. As we talk together it becomes very clear that none of us has, in away, “arrived”. Indeed, whether our churches are in an emerging stream or in the mainstream it is obvious that we who pastor-teach them have not yet brought them…
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28 April, 2010 (13:56) | No comments
(Aaron Snow - writer and missional catalyst.)
Aaron Snow writes insightfully on the Shapevine website about the art of being wrong. He writes: “American culture (and human nature) screams that we must never, ever, ever, under any circumstances admit that we are wrong…about ANYTHING, ever…” Read more »
28 April, 2010 (12:30) | No comments
A gripping and fascinating book. A Great read. We love it. it!
Tony & Felicity Dale – Senior Editors – House2House Magazine Read more »
28 April, 2010 (12:27) | No comments
(Image copyright: David Joshua Ford)
In the last few years there has been a great deal of “conversation” about the nuts and bolts of how we do church. This far into the conversation it should be clear that something in ‘the wind’ is calling on us to do something deeper than sharpen our ecclesiology… Read more »
28 April, 2010 (12:26) | 3 comments
A SUMMARY OF PAUL’S TALK AT THE RECENT “NEW MONASTICISM” CONFERENCE HOSTED BY THE ANABAPTIST ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND IN MELBOURNE… Read more »
26 April, 2010 (12:30) | No comments
One thing that is often lacking in our secularized culture is any real understanding of the fact that we live in a society… Read more »
25 April, 2010 (18:00) | No comments
The famous icon of Rublev - recalls in the language of Byzantine religious art the hospitality of Abraham. That story, told in Genesis 18, dramatizes the lesson of Hebrews 13 - that if we make ourselves hospitable people we may entertain angels unawares… Read more »
25 April, 2010 (14:00) | No comments
by Bessie Pereira Director of OIKOS Australia.
At the end of his new book The New Monastic Paul Wallis hopes that the story of his character Ben Anthony will “entertain and encourage you, praying especially that it will inspire fresh courage in anyone who feels they have paid a price for being as slow as Ben Anthony was in catching on to the exciting, earth-shattering, and church-changing call of today’s new monastic”.
Entertaining it certainly is…. Read more »
10 February, 2010 (08:26) | No comments
Colossians Remixed (Walsh/Keesmaat), After You Believe (NT Wright), If God Is Love and If Grace Were True (Gulley), Hidden Power of the Gospels (Shaia), After McDonaldization (Drane), Alone with a Jihadist (Aaron Taylor), and The New Monastic (Paul Wallis).
5 January, 2010 (12:00) |
In a recent blog Michael Hyatt (CEO of ThomasNelson) wrote about the problems of “silver-bullet thinking”. He wrote: “In the Western literary tradition, the silver bullet was the only weapon that could destroy certain types of monsters. As a result, it became the metaphor for a singular solution that solves a gigantic problem.” Michael then goes on to unpack the issue from the point of view of the business world…
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5 January, 2010 (11:48) | 2 comments
“Should we really listen to the unchurched?” was a provocative question raised by missiologist and FB friend Ed Stetzer recently in his excellent blog www.edstetzer.com and it has provoked an interesting exchange on Twitter & Facebook. This discussion, as it often does, revolved around perceiving the “unchurched” as people around whose “needs” the churched need to orient themselves. This is a half-truth which prompted me to join the fray of the debate… Read more »
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