There has been much discussion about the decision by the New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinta Arden, to arrange for the Muslim call to prayer to go out over the airwaves of national radio today, followed by two minutes silence. And all this in light of the atrocities in Christchurch last week. On the surface it […]
So we’ve got another round of banning the Lord’s Prayer or reacting to banning the Lord’s Prayer in a Parliament somewhere in Australia. You can read about it here on the ABC site. What’s that? The 23rd attempt in five years? I kinda feel comforted by this sort of thing. Mainly because of its regularity. […]
Remember the glove? Remember the glove that didn’t fit? If you’re old enough to remember the OJ Simpson trial, the so called trial of the century in the US back in 1994, you’ll remember the glove that didn’t fit. OJ – the Juice – the famous footballer, was on trial for the murder of his […]
The last time I went for a haircut was back in 1994. A quarter of a century ago. I remember it well, even if at the time I didn’t know it would be the final one for 25 years. Italian Catholic bloke in his late fifties called Tony in Wesley Arcade Perth. Slicked back balding […]
I worry that an awful lot of modern day ministry is about making bricks for evangelical pharaohs. Whether those pharaohs are actual people, or whether they are systems and philosophies of ministry that have been put in place, doesn’t matter all that much; making bricks is the paradigm of much modern ministry. And it’s leaving […]
Imagine waking up and only you had heard of The Beatles. That’s the conceit behind the latest movie from director Danny “SlumDog Millionaire” Boyle and screenwriter Richard “Love Actually” Curtis, Yesterday. Yesterday is shaping up to be the feel-good movie of the coming northern summer, in which a talented, but spectacularly unsuccessful musician, Jack Malik, wakes […]
When Matisha moved into the retirement apartment next to my Mum last year, things got ugly. Very ugly. Very quickly. Matisha took an instant dislike to Mum. Only my Mum. All the other residents she was fine with. Chatted with them. Spent time with them But there was something about Mum that she took an […]
Dutchman Johan Cruyff was perhaps the greatest footballer/soccer player ever. Brazil’s Pele might pip him in some polls; George Best was a brief shining superstar. But as the leader of the Ajax FC and Dutch teams’ “total football” approach in the 1970s, plus a glittering playing and coaching career with the famous FC Barcelona, Cruyff, […]
Six years ago today, after several months of meeting as two household groups, our church, Providence Church Midland, decided to do a public gathering every fortnight, and household on the other weekend. We rented an old building in Midland, the old Midland bank: About thirty or so of us turned up (no visitors despite a […]
Golf is having its God moment. Or, to put it another way, its Blockbuster Video moment. And it’s happening with the same generation of people that the church has been struggling to engage with in the West – the Millennials. 22-37 year olds have lost interest in the game. Golf courses, which are expensive to […]
Although I have heard of evangelical mega-pastor James MacDonald, I am not familiar with any of his books. Or his sermons. Or his broadcast messages on Christian radio. And I didn’t know his church, Harvest Bible Chapel, had 13 thousand members and numerous affiliate churches. I didn’t know MacDonald’s church was in Chicago, however there […]
Forget toxic masculinity. Don’t even mention toxic femininity. Yesterday’s move by the New York legislature to enshrine abortion up to full term in New York State is a prime example of one thing: toxic humanity. But more than that. The true toxicity is not in the signing of the legislation, but in the unadulterated celebrating […]
There’s an App for every occasion, and now there’s one for your final occasion. WeCroak.com offers an app that reminds you – often – that you are going to die. It’s based on a Bhutanese folk saying that to truly be happy we must contemplate our mortality five times per day. With its funky frog logo […]
The new Gillette ad We Believe is causing quite the stir around the world (well, around the rich Western world where men can afford razors with multiple blades). And it’s divided people just as sharply as a well honed cut-throat razor would. The company is unapologetic for hitching its wagon onto the #Metoo movement, and obviously […]
In hard secular times we imagine that the people of God will nobly knuckle down and stand firm in the face of the Sexular Culture, the post-Christian social experiments that continue to defy physio-logic, and progressive officialdom’s push to purge the public square of any Christian voice that does not play the “renaming” game. In […]
I don’t ever see it going back to what it was like before. Before you came into our lives. You’ve got to hand it to Netflix. Putting on Marie Kondo’s Tidying Up straight after Christmas and the New Year was a masterstroke in scheduling. By now, in a frenzy of new year’s resolve and […]
Jared C Wilson gets five out of five stars for his review of the state of Christian movies: Why Christian Movies Are So Terrible. He nails it, especially the first point, that Christian movies are made, not by artists, but by propagandists. Wilson states: Christian movies are more akin to propaganda than art, because they […]
Contemporary is out. Liturgy is the new black. A recent article in The Times confirms what I’ve been hearing anecdotally, and been witnessing among our own congregation: many Millennials returning to church are often not headed towards the large pentecostal churches, or the “pentecostal-lite”, or even the “evangelical-lite”, but towards liturgy. Now the article above is […]
What would you do with up to three months off work? Does that sound like a dream? Well, I have almost three months off, combining annual leave, some long service leave, and a slow taper back into two roles in March. And it sounds like a dream. Sounds like it. I just don’t want it […]
It would seem that the only relationship that isn’t respected by those rolling out the Trojan horse program Respectful Relationships into our schools, is the relationship between parents and their own children. Once Christmas ends, the first billboards from Officeworks are up, reminding parents that it’s back to school in only four weeks time! Four […]
Two world’s ran into each other on New Year’s Day near where I live. It was a hot morning down at the river where I was heading to do the New Year’s Day 5km Woodbridge parkrun event. There were about 160 other people milling around warming up. I’d gotten up early, for a warm up […]
