“Jesus said he wanted us to be in the world but not of it. The problem is that we have succeeded in neither. We are not in the world, but instead find ourselves in a church subculture removed from it. And inside that subculture we have become worldly.”
Jim Thwaites – Renegotiating the Church Contract P.96
Ouch.
For all those who feel like they are walking in the dark with mission this is a reminder that shunting people into our ‘light’ is not necessarily the best thing at all.
I’m not much of a tech geek, but I do like to tinker a little.
So if over the next few days this site suddenly looks weird it is because Hamo has been messing around with stuff he shouldn’t have.
One thing I have chosen not to put on this new site is a ‘hit-meter’. Watching your hit meter is a bit like counting your congregation, or comparing willy size. Its strongly ego connected. Like Gaz I considered giving blogging all away but maybe a change of perspective will do the trick instead.
So… if you would like to read then you are most welcome. If you don’t want to read any more then I probably won’t know…
For today I have some other writing to get on with, so that’s it from me for a little while.
My friend, blogging buddy and church planting comrade Saint Gaz has given up the blog.
You can read about it at his site.
I have always enjoyed reading Gaz’s thoughts and hearing what he’s doing, but his reason for quitting is a good one and I have to applaud this bloke’s integrity.
Now we will just have to catch up more often and actually talk…
Google Earth is an amazing program!
For those who are interested in our little patch of the world, here are some images (a little dated) of where we live. In fact for those in the know, although you can see the first stage of Brighton and the lakes, the land hasn’t even been cleared for our houses in this image.
The first is of our local area – some of the places I go to regularly. It is about 8 kms from bottom to top
The second is a big scale image of where we have lived in Perth and where we moved from to get to Brighton.
The third shows you how old this image is as it is a close up of where our house is supposed to be.
Thanks to Justin
I made a great discovery today.
First up was the discovery that he hosts WordPress blogs for just $4.00/month. So he is getting me set up and soon I will be at http://www.backyardmissionary.com That was a no-brainer! Justin is a great bloke offering a really good deal so soon that’s where I will be.
Secondly he alerted me to the Wayback Machine where I was able to find a couple of my old websites that have now been deleted or changed.
For those still doing church in the standard mode you may find my drama scripts
useful. There are 40 odd scripts there from my time in an established church, some of which are very funny (if i do say so myself 🙂
Feel free to help yourself. I was going to condense them into a book and get them published but it just wasn’t worth the grief.
This Sunday I begin a three week series at Parkerville Baptist on the ‘New Age’ or whatever you choose to call it.
Week 1 will be convincing people of the importance of this movement and describing it
Week 2 will be along the lines of what we can learn from the New Age
Week 3 will be ways we can connect with new agers.
I did this series 3 years ago and its still one of my favourites. Its kinda ‘new age for dummies’ – a whole bunch of my own reading condensed and translated into the language of the average punter in the second row.
I’ve learnt a lot since then too, but as I reviewed it today, it seemed that it was reasonably close to the mark.
I’m not precious about sharing resources, copyright etc so if any of you want to do something similar and would like notes and powerpoint stuff then email me and I’l send it thru.
“Every moment and every situation challenges us to action and to obedience. We have literally no time to sit down and ask ourselves whether so-and-so is our neighbour or not. We must get into action and obey — we must behave like a neighbour to him. But perhaps this shocks you. Perhaps you still think you ought to think out beforehand and know what you ought to do. To that, there is only one answer. You can only know and think about it by actually doing it. It is no use asking questions; for it is only through obedience that you come to learn the truth.”
Oscar Romero
How about that?
‘You can only know and think about it by actually doing it…’
‘It is only thru obedience that you come to learn the truth…’
Is Romero suggesting that we learn as we ‘do’ rather than learning before we ‘do’? I wonder how that would transform our educative process if we took that approach?
I actually believe there is significant truth for us to hear in that quote. It may not always be true, but it is probably true way more often that it would currently appear to be in our churches.
This Friday I am taking a class in church planting at our West Oz Baptist Theological College. Its part of a church health/church growth course.
I’d like to begin with 3 questions:
1. What is the gospel?
2. What is conversion and how does it occur?
3. What is the/church?
We’ll see where it goes from there. If these students are anything like I was then they will think they know the answers…
Once we get into it a little they might think again.
I’m not trying to be a smartarse (like I’d need to try…), but rather trying to rock the equilibrium a little now, so that they are better prepared for what they encounter in a missional context.
These questions took on new answers as I exited the established church scene and began to walk the missionary journey.
I would like to suggest that the measure of a church is its ability to transform society rather than the number of people attending the Sunday service. That sounds like a great idea… but we are pretty bound to bums on seats.
Sometimes I feel like my role is to be the provoker and disturber rather than simply the teacher.
If you consider yourself a first world missionary and you haven’t read Roland Allen’s Spontaneous Expansion of the Church and The Causes Which Hinder It, then you really need to get cracking.
I discovered the text of the book today on Steve Addison’s site in PDF format. (Steve has a stash of really good stuff!)
This is a gem.
I am also reading Christianity Rediscovered at the moment. It is another great missionary book, where Vincent Donovan explores what the gospel looks like for the Masai people.