I am on the last day of three weeks holiday (23 days to be exact, but hey, who’s counting? – tanned, relaxed Ed). As a family we had great down time, with just enough “me and Jill” time and just enough “we’re all in this together” time, plus an extra teenager for a few days […]
Category: Church
We Built This Suburb on Rock and Roll
It goes against all conventional wisdom – and a whole lot of church planting books – to say that the future of church planting is found not in the cities, but in the suburbs. It goes against all of the planning that many churches and church planters are undertaking to say that the world is […]
Jesus Is Not the Poster Boy of the Left or Right
I saw this poster recently on Facebook and it has some interesting things to say. Some I would agree with, others I would say are shots in the dark and an attempt to paint Jesus in the image of a modern Western, well-educated, culturally relative liberal. In short, its just another way of creating God […]
In a 110 Per Cent World I gave 0.78%
This morning, Wednesday (“Mittwoch” in German meaning “middle-week”), I did a middling run at a middling pace at a middling time of the day (not too early, not too late). It amounted to 0.78 per cent of my marathon training program distance. 13km out of 1666.2km. No bust-outs, no speed intervals, no tempos, no great distance, just […]
The Church Planter Ping Pong Ball Test.
I didn’t go to the Tim Keller conference in Sydney last week (he didn’t come to the Steve McAlpine conference, so I guess we are even – Ed), but I heard how good it was. Things in life and home didn’t coincide to make it a great time to take four days out and fly […]
My life is full of kudos and awesomeness
Well, it has to be said, I am pretty awesome. Or so the run program Strava tells me every time someone decides to stalk, er, follow me on Strava to see how amazingly awesome I am at running. And then there’s the kudos! Don’t talk to me about the kudos! I get so many of […]
Church Planting: A Two Speed Economy Or Bust
I have written in the past that if evangelism is going to be truly effective it must be driven by a two-speed economy; it’s both long-term, low-key, relational, and it’s FIFO – door knocking, quick conversations on trains, planes and automobiles. Whilst the risks of only operating FIFO evangelism seem immediate (abuse, derision, death by […]
The Endless Immensity of the Sea
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. Antoine de Saint Exupery It’s easy in church planting to get lost in planning and forget vision. The quote above from […]
Extreme Jesus
I start with a disclaimer: Actual blog post is in no way related to Extreme Jesus – the movie and its exploration of Team Xtreme, the particularly well-muscled evangelism outfit) We’ve heard it said so often haven’t we? They Like Jesus, But Not the Church (there’s a book title in that surely – behind-the-times Ed). […]
Strong Leaders and Baseball Bats
Of all the scenes in Brian de Palma’s movie about the Chicago mafia boss Al Capone, The Untouchables, the most famous is the shoot-out in the train station between Elliott Ness and Capone’s lackeys. However, for me the most memorable scene is more simple and far more brutal. Capone is hosting his generals for dinner. The […]