I have to admit I enjoy reading the Australian Psychological Society’s monthly journal InPsych. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t enjoy it for the dazzling insights into the human condition that I see within its pages. I enjoy it because it’s prophetic: InPsych‘s commitment to a radical post-Christian perspective on what it means to be […]
-
26 Years and One Day Later
Today I am fifty two years and two days old. Today it is twenty six years and one day since Jill and I went on our first date. That was one day after my twenty six birthday, Thursday September 16th 1993. I’ve put a wedding photo up on this blog cos I couldn’t find a […]
-
Depressed
I was just finishing a sermon when it all came crashing down. Not my sermon. Me. I came crashing down. I remember the moment exactly. Sunday morning, Parkerville Baptist Church, 2005. It was the morning of the church open day. It was a hive of activity. A buzz. Marquees, tents, food, drinks, performances. And me, […]
-
The BBC: 100 Genders, 92 League Teams
Back in the days before the internet existed, I would get up Sunday morning primed for the dulcet tones of the BBC World Service’s James Alexander Gordon reading out the English Football results. Did Arsenal win? Arsenal were in the old first division, so I’d know early as that got read out first. It was […]
-
Songs Stick and Songs Speak: Discipling Kids With Gospel Singing
Michael Tinker is a friend of mine from Sheffield in the UK. He is a singer/songwriter who specialises in creating content and productions for discipling children. (He’s a great folk musician too). Michael possesses a range of musical styles and personas in his children’s performances and appears at schools and church groups across the UK. […]
-
Fishing and Living in Babylon
I’ve just started working with an Australian evangelistic organisation in a new venture called Third Space, aimed at both being a third space for non-Christians to ask questions about the gospel, and helping churches find those third spaces for themselves. We believe that while the Western setting has never been more hostile towards the gospel, […]
-
The Good Place Ain’t So Great
I’m a late adopter of TV series. I’m the bloke who dismisses it with a shrug, only to binge watch it later and talk about it as if he were an expert on all things that show. So when I say I loved the Netflix series The Good Place, I really did love it. It’s original, well-acted, and it […]
-
Fatherless Day
It’s the third Father’s Day since my own father died. Long enough to forget that fact as I laced on my shoes and went on a cool morning long run. Short enough to feel a pang of remembrance as I ran past a young family walking to a Father’s Day breakfast at a cafe. It […]
-
Apostasy: It’s Never Been Easier
What has made apostasy such an attractive option these days? It’s like a social contagion. Or a social media contagion at least. Christians wringing their hands about where it all went wrong as yet another celebrity Christian leader (a descriptor I have been unable to source in the original Greek) hits the dirt in a […]
-
-
Hey Church: A Fallow Year Ain’t A Bad Idea
‘ Does your church need a fallow year? Sounds like apostasy in the ears of many church leaders, but the conversations I’ve been having with pastors, other paid leaders and lay people indicates that the idea of a fallow year might not be a bad thing for your church. You know what I mean by […]
-
The Right Coloured Ashtrays for Church
You know God’s doing something special when you’re choosing the colour of the ashtrays for the church not the colour of the carpet. Yet here’s Don Warner of Byford Baptist Church, an ordinary congregation of 140 ordinary people in an ordinary suburb in Perth’s ordinary semi-rural fringe, painting coffee tins for the local people, who […]
Recent Posts
Hey ABC: Church dads have been “woke” for years
So Aussie dads are getting “woke”. Well, according to an article on the ABC website, they are. By “woke” the ABC means dads who are finally, finally taking their useless Daddy Pig-ness off to market to be slaughtered. And they’re coming back all cleaned up, ready to push prams, take parental leave and do […]
Book Review: The Rise and Fall of Movements: A Roadmap for Leaders
I first met Steve Addison a decade or so ago when a couple of friends and I were in the early stages of church planting. What struck us most was Steve’s humility and his wise, generous advice to a bunch of rookies starting out. It was a breath of fresh air. Ten years later, Steve’s […]
Which Tim Costello Will We Get This Week?
Which Tim Costello will we get this week? It’s become a bit of a guessing game to wile away the hours. Will it be School Principal Tim Costello, scolding naughty Christians “who need to “suck it up”? Or will it be avuncular Tim Costello, putting a hand on our collective Christian shoulders and going “There, […]
Let’s Never Outlive Our Love For Jesus
Oh, make me thine forever! And should I fainting be, Lord, let me never, never Outlive my love for thee. Have you ever thought about the possibility of outliving your love for Jesus? Growing old, but having left Jesus behind in middle age? What would that be like? I was out running this afternoon, a […]
Josh Harris’ New Creation Story
The problem with this photograph, of course, is that it does not look like deconstruction. It does not look like falling away. It does not look like apostasy. It looks like a new Adam about to launch onto a new world. It looks like salvation. And that of course is what it is intended to look […]
Watch This Third Space
Earlier this year I began a new part time venture with City Bible Forum, called Third Space, alongside David Robertson, a pastor, author and broadcaster from Dundee in Scotland who blogs at theweeflea.com. I am staying on two days a week with our church, Providence Church in Perth. David has moved to Sydney with his […]
NASA, Woodstock and The Search For Identity
The two images below were taken a month apart: The launch of Apollo 11 in mid July 1969 on its way to the moon with three astronauts. And this photo taken mid August 1969: Woodstock, August 1969. It’s hard to think of two events so close in time, and location, yet more distant in terms […]
I Kissed Rating Goodbye
The shooting star that was the Young, Restless Reformed crowd shone brightly as it burned. Brightly and all the quicker for it. And now with the likes of Mark Driscoll seemingly dumping all over Reformed Theology from his land of exile, and Josh Harris dumping his marriage, it certainly feels like what began with a […]
Why Secular Church Started So Well, but Finished So Poorly (and Quickly)
We’ve all heard over the past few years of the move among Nones to start something like church, with all the bells and whistles, talks and coffee, singing and platforms. Something like church but with one small variable – no Jesus. They began to meet in buildings across all the funky cities in the world […]
What a Relief: Israel’s Not Kosher After All!
Phew!! Many an evangelical just let out a huge sigh of relief following yesterday’s definitive exposé of just how right-of-centre Israel Folau’s church group is. Izzy’s just been outed as totally non-kosher in the orthodox Christian world, so we can all get on with ignoring him. Many evangelicals have, no doubt, been praising Jesus (and the […]