We only have one church service for our church. We don’t replicate. We don’t run two services and expect the same people to come to both (morning and evening like in the past). We don’t do homogenous unit principle church. We do one service. Now, hear me carefully. When it comes to how to do […]
Are you a “rip it off slowly”, or rip it off quickly person when it comes to the dreaded Band-Aid? Whatever happens it’s going to be “ouchy”, right? So which “ouchy” do we want? Quick or slow? A friend asked me last night if I was feeling pleased that many of the things I’ve been […]
I said here last year that the changes to the Marriage Act would not usher in a slippery slope, but were in fact signs of a precipice. That, in less than 12 months since the plebiscite, this has proven to be the case should be no surprise. And the evidence is mounting. So when did it […]
Noel Pearson’s comments this weekend about the nature of religion remind me of being in a foreign country and struggling to find my way back to the hotel. There you are in Thailand on a week away. You were sure your accommodation was down that side street, but then again it could be the one […]
It’s been a shameful week for those in the left leaning media in Australia this week. For weeks progressive media outlets have been cat-calling the Morrison Government over its failure to release the Ruddock Review on Religious Freedom. “What are you trying to hide?” was the constant cry from the likes of the ABC and […]
Derryn Hinch – the self proclaimed human headline (it’s his Twitter handle) – is a boofhead. Always has been. Always will be. A TV shock jock with too much to say, and who says things he has been court-ordered not to say. A bloke who has several contempt of court matters to his name, as […]
The Ruddock Review of Religious Freedom has aimed at nothing and hit it. Which is a great pity. It’s not clear from the leaked reports on the review that any lessons have been learned from some of the litigious actions going on overseas. Worse, if the reports are correct, the review’s inability to say anything […]
Is nothing secular anymore? It’s toe-curling watching the manner in which our most famous building, The Sydney Opera House, has been pimped out to the racing industry these past few days. It feels like something has been hollowed out of us as a nation, and that’s saying something given the cultural turmoil of the past […]
For decades my dad would get up in the morning, make a cheese sandwich – the regular boring cheese, not the classy stuff – get in his car, and drive off to work in some form of semi-skilled low paying manufacturing job in a factory on an industrial estate somewhere. Every day the same type […]
While much of the talk is of bunkering down in the face of a coming cultural exile for the traditional church, we might just be in for a surprising gospel harvest at the same time. Not a harvest instead of exile. Nor in spite of. But because of. Amidst the scandals of rotten in churches […]
The human mind is prepared for tribalism I wish I’d come up with that line, but I didn’t. It’s academic and moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s line in his new book (co-written with Greg Lukianoff): The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions And Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation For Failure. What’s Haidt […]
This is what you live for, there is nothing better. This is my religion. The Eagles are my life. Those freshly minted words were uttered by West Coast Eagles supporter, Adam Logan, as he soaked up the thrill of the Eagles defeating Collingwood in one of the all-time great Australian Football League Grand Finals yesterday. […]
In the midst of all the frustration or anger that the current religious freedom debates in Australia engender, spare a thought for Chinese Christians. In a revealing article in The Guardian today China’s myriad unofficial churches are coming under direction pressure, indeed persecution, from Beijing. And all at a time when The Roman Catholic Church is […]
2018 feels like the eye of the storm in Australia. The oft-rampant fury of 2017’s ethical debates around sexuality have dissipated somewhat, and we’re in a holding pattern waiting to see what happens. 12 months ago (has the year really gone that quickly?) we were in the middle of the plebiscite on same sex marriage […]
It’s not too late for those organising the Franklin Graham tour of Australia next year to get on the blower and tell the man not to come. For the problem is not that too few people will turn up, but too many. And quite possibly for all the wrong reasons. We’re being told it’s about […]
While we’re all wringing our hands over the demographic decline in many denominations, spare a thought for Humanism Australia. When it comes to decline, the humanists are outstripping the churches, only unfortunately for them, quite literally, they haven’t a prayer. A friend posted this excerpt of a report from late last year on their website: …membership […]
Just when you seem to have sorted it out, that pesky secular frame seems to dip and trough all over the place. According to a report in The Conversation online news journal, Gen Z – today’s teen – has a less hostile, more ambivalent approach to religion than perhaps the Dawkins apostles would have wished […]
Twenty five years ago today, one day after my 26th birthday, Jill and I went out on our first date. A quarter of a century. My life has been a game – or a dance – of two halves, so to speak. Here’s a picture of Jill on about date number five, a month or […]
When, in my early twenties I went hiking in Northern Ireland’s Mourne Mountains; pea-green valleys, rock-strewn peaks, swirls of snow, and ancient stone walls, it was easy to imagine a deep vert dragon rising suddenly through the mists in front of me. And easier still to long for one to do so. Dan Conway’s latest […]
What else do you have on in the week? That is the #1 question newcomers ask when wondering if they should stop off at your church. Sometimes they’re asking: How can I be involved? Often they’re asking: How can I belong? Community groups, Bible study groups, growth groups, small groups, youth groups, men’s groups, women’s groups […]
There have been plenty of articles about why Millennials – those twenty somethings – are not coming to church. Plenty of time and attention towards what would bring them back. Well, in our church at the moment plenty of Millennials ARE coming. It’s been noted by the older crowd that they’re starting to get outnumbered […]
Until six months ago we lived in what has been described as “a hard scrabble part of the town”. It’s not exactly the projects of Baltimore depicted in The Wire, but to have one drug house opposite you for 10 years is unfortunate. To move house and live opposite another drug house reeks of carelessness, […]
Did our Prime Minister really say that he was on God’s side? And if he did is that not a dangerous thing? This article in The Guardian seems to indicate it: Geoff Thompson, who lectures in the University of Divinity makes this comment: Beyond their morality and beyond the discussions about separating church and […]
Going prematurely bald leaves one open to all sorts of insults. Especially on the sports field. My twin brother and I both duly followed the long and honourable line of men on both sides of our family by losing our hair in our early twenties. While playing soccer, a sport renowned for on-field put-downs birthed […]
