I do this by natural temperament or something, but for many pastors it is something that needs to be spelled out:

The last tactical principle is to get involved in a ministry outside your own church. Amen, Zac! The bloke who trained me gave me this rule of thumb—namely, that you should serve on one broader ministry or committee for your own denomination (e.g. a denominational school board or regional committee) and one that's inter-denominational (e.g. a Scripture Union Family Mission or a Katoomba Convention Committee). Some can do more than this; few should do less.

Ministers who, by their frontline enthusiasm, won't do any denominational work are spending all the denominational dividends without reinvesting any capital. Furthermore, they leave the resources built up by evangelicals available for take over by liberals. (From Sola Panel)

Even in the early days, it can be so easy to focus on 'just getting the sermon perfect' and fulfilling ridiculously amibitous post Bible College plans to study Greek and Hebrew for half an hour every morning and so focused on your local church where you are in control, that you don't consider giving to the wider Christian community.

The MTS movement has used three Cs for a long time, as a structure for ministry training: Conviction, Character and Competence.

In this post, Sandy describes a suggestion for an additional two: Commitment and Capacity:

This is one of the shortest of all the chapters (it was less than two pages), and the hard work is left to the application guide here, which speaks of the need for the 4Cs (which is familiar to those involved with MTS): conviction, character, commitment and competency.

I was particularly helped by the observation by application guide author Ken Noakes that a fifth C was needed: capacity. He distinguishes between competency to carry out a role and capacity to do so (e.g. from possessing self-discipline, time availability and management, etc.)

Stu begins a series of posts about that funny parental tendency to give the same thing to each child "to be fair":

People have different needs, and treating them fairly means treating them differently, not the same. This is obvious when we take an extreme example: let's say one of my children is physically disabled, so we spend a few thousand dollars equipping the bathroom so they can use it easily. We don't immediately think we have to spend a few thousand dollars on something specifically for each of our other children.

If we think treating people justly or fairly will mean treating them according to their needs, then we will feel free to do different things for different people. 'Loving others' does not call for a one-size-fits-all response; it requires us to know people well and think about how to love them.

And other things.

Al Stewart, of The Geneva Push, with pigs:

Fi writes another wise post:

I've prayed that I will share myself with people, and put them first. I like it when God answers this prayer because then I'm a little more like Jesus, the relationships are a little more like they will be in heaven and I'm more myself than at any other time. Too much time spent worrying over your image or fears turns you into a caricature of your true self. If, by God's grace, you can forget these things, then the living's easy - you have only to be the woman or man God made you to be.

Peter Scholl starts thinking out loud.

It's funny how this is contrary to anecdotal evidence in the Australian church and the warnings of the Old Testament about being led astray by pagan spouses. Could it be because Australian Christians tend to date non-Christians rather tha marry them, our lower lever of commitment, or something else?

That Christians seldom lost out via exogamous marriages is also in keeping with modern observations of high-tension religious movements. Female Joehovah's Witnesses frequently marry outside the group (Heaton 1990). Seldom does this result in their defection, and it often results in the conversion of the spouse. Indeed, this phenomenon is so general that Andrew Greeley (1970) has proposed the rule that whenever a mixed marriage occurs, the less religious person will usually join the religion of the more religious member.
(Rise of Christianity, p. 114)

I've posted plenty of positive stuff about Facebook, now let me get nasty. Here's two annoying things about Facebook messages (especially with my eye on University mission next year):

• The fact that people (especially students) do their social and meaningful emailing through Facebook messages and reserve email for junkmail/formal mail really sucks. Why exchange a powerful and very adaptable tool for a really lame equivalent? "Un-like"
• The fact that Facebook Pages can only send 'Updates to Fans' and not 'Messages' also sucks. You'd have to go out of your way and check your 'Updates' or else program your email alerts to tell you when someone send you an update. Most people won't do this I guess. Why this annoying distinction (rhetorical question, please dont' answer)? "Unlike"

Unfortunate name, important responsibility.

Our church musos are all Sojourn fanboys, so it's nice to see Mike Cosper here:


Tim Smith took us out for Thai food while we were in Seattle, so he deserves a video embedding too:

I'm planning to run a monthly evening meeting as the backbone to the University Fellowship of Christians next year. I've been umming and aahing about a name for it for a while - I really didn't want to just call it something vomitous like 'Evening Meeting' or 'Bible Talks'.

I've settled on 'Citywide Gathering'. I know, I know, it's a little bit charo, a little bit 'love the city, learn from the city', but the main reasons I like it:

• Emphasises that we are a uni mission for all the UTAS Hobart campuses (Clinical School, Art School, Conservatorium of Music), not just the large one in Sandy Bay.
• Highlights the significant role that UTAS has in Hobart's cultural life. We have one large university for the whole city, in fact for the whole state. This gives UTAS a peculiar centrality.

This post is also an excuse to link to our new website again. One of the best websites in the universe, I reckon.

I'm currently reading The Rise of Christianity. It's a fun and intriguing read. Will blog some bits and pieces later. For now, let me just throw a few titbits. He claims:

• The early church was not predominantly poor, but middle class, or even wealthy.
• The early mission to the Jews largely succeeded.
• Christianity expanded through friendship evangelism, not mass conversions.

Stay tuned...

One final observation from Love and Respect by Eggerichs:

It's true that women have intuition and that men should listen to them. It is also true that women have blind spots and need the insight of their husbands... (229)

Your husband will feel you appreciate his insight and counsel when... you recognize his problem-solving approach as his male brand of empathy... you sometimes let him 'fix things' and applaud his solutions... you admit that you can sin and thank him for his perception and godly counsel. (237)

I think this is cool. One of the most annoying characters in advertising is the bumbling idiot McCains' husband who never has a clue and is always tolerated and patronised by the ever-competent wife.

I'm really enjoying these posts from Sandy Grant. I enjoy all the leadership tips, the personal responses to it and the critical review of the book he is reviewing. Great stuff. I'm hoping we can republish this material on the Geneva website.

MTS' National Director is on Twitter. I reckon he'll be a good guy to follow - he's a real character and very down to earth. Also' he's in touch with people getting on with the great commission all over the country.

We're live

A great Don moment was at the SMBC Preachers' Conference a few years ago, when he was illustrating the problem of biblical illiteracy (I quote loosely):

And it's not just lay people. I was at a pastors' conference and mentioned Jotham's fable. And they didn't know what I was talking about! Let alone what the difference between a fable and a parable was...

And we were all nodding our heads and tutt-tutting... while casually skimming through our Bibles trying to find Jotham and whispering to one another about what the heck was unique about a fable.

Challies is did a series (available as a couple of e-books)

Here's an excerpt from his post 'pornifying the marriage bed':

My great concern with young men today (which is really more a concern for their young wives) is that they may perhaps inadvertently or perhaps intentionally pornify the marriage bed. They may bring impurity to the pure, selfishness to the selfless. Having given themselves over to pornography, they have had their whole perception of sexuality altered, shaped by professional pornographers. They may be imposing on their young brides the impossible expectation of a porn star. With the vast majority of young men having been exposed to pornography (at least 90% according to recent studies), with a large percentage of them having been addicted to it and with many enjoying it still as they enter into marriage, they need to have their understanding and their expectations reset according to the One who created sex.

And here's an excerpt from a post by his wife:

Today's wife has good reason to believe that sex is no deeper than the physical and that her husband wants and needs her only to meet his urgent needs. All around us society screams this message—that sex within marriage, sex designed as mutual pleasure from husband to wife and wife to husband—is the relic of another age. Instead it tells us that sex is actually nothing too special. It is just the release of pent-up hormones, an enjoyable act that can be shared with just about anyone with little ill effect. Many wives bring to marriage these messages from society, from movies and books, from parents, from previous relationships. The worst part is that your own husband may confirm the bad messages by taking what he can get, settling for your body in those times that you refuse to give him all of you. He rolls over and goes to sleep unfulfilled, convinced that he cannot arouse you or please you. Meanwhile, you roll over feeling used, confirmed in your suspicion that he is a pervert who is just after your body. The vicious circle commences and grows with both husband and wife contributing to it.

It turns out that women need sexual detox, too. You may have never looked at pornography and you may not have a long and extensive sexual history. But still, you have absorbed messages that are causing you to withdraw your heart from your husband. You believe lies and allow these lies to shape your marriage. Thankfully truth trumps error like spades trumps diamonds (it doesn't, doesn't it?). So let's bring some truth to the error.

simplici-tea

I wasn't sure on which blog this post belonged.

This is awesome. It's exactly the sort of conversation I expect rabbis to be having:

The question of how YHWH will accomplish resurrection is the subject of a fascinating debate between the Pharisaic/rabbinic schools of Hillel and Shammai, reported in Genesis Rabbah 14.5 and LEviticus Rabbah 14.9. The two schools are debating whether YHWH will make the new body by starting with skin and flesh and firming them up until finally sinews and bones are formed (the opinion of the Hillelites), or whether YHWH will start with the bones (the opinion of the Shammaites) and work outwards from there. The Shammaites, of course, claim Ezekiel 37 on their side, interpereting that passage as the LXX had perhaps already done. The Hillelites, more tenuously perhaps, claim Job 10.10, reading the passage firmly in the future tense.
N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, p. 197-198

Bron's doing a series on this and hint number 3 is pretty good:

Shopping

See also number 1:

They may not want help

Haven't blogged about GTD for a while. Here's five things that I continue to appreciate about this organisational approach:

1. The habit of taking note of everything. Keeping concrete notes of everything I'm worrying about, need to do, want to remember, have to get around to. This is strengthened by my confidence that I will actually deal with the things I note down.
2. The conviction that getting the Inbox to empty is a non-negotiable. My email inbox is rarely over ten and only after a week off is it over 25. Most of the time it is zero. Actually sorting through all the 'pending' piles in your concrete and electronic life is very valuable.
3. The perspective of a unified system. I can see everything I have to deal with in home and work life and with the multiple organisations I am involved in all at a glance. The ability to make decisions in the light of the whole, and the sense of control over the madness is great.
4. A system to get any new project humming. Whether I need to raise money for my mission work next year, or organise a soup giveaway, or learn to catch squid, I have a way to actually work-up a project plan from scratch.
5. The resolve (and preference) to always make decisions in the light of the outcome. It is very painful to sit in on committee meetings where we stumble from task to task, worry to worry. It is so much better to be constantly driven forward by the desired outcome.

Michael Jensen's article spells out an important and ironically often unclear subject.

O glorious web.

It's all set for their New Venue Launch and Street Party on 28th November.

The website uses images really nicely throughout and has a nice amount of information available from the front page.

Good job guys.

Ben's list
Nathan's list

My addition would be: find your voice. Some people have a great blogging voice. Some people are great thinkers and great writers, but just don't seem to have a good blogging voice. I don't know what it is. But it makes me think of that episode in Season 6 or 7 of the West Wing when Amy Gardner tells Matt Santos he's gotta find his Presidential Voice.

Izaac's latest bittersweet post brings back all the feelings of the planting and eventual closing down of Hobart Central Church in 2002-2005.

Docklands Church has changed its name to reinforce that it has a vision beyond the Docklands area of Melbourne.

City on a Hill.

The draft is looking great. Should be kicking off with a decent amount of content, which is rad.

I'm coming up to Sydney the day before to drink too much coffee (at Shenkin if they're open) with Nick and probably buy some Korean BBQ. Then I'm leaving the day after and will buy the kids presents from the airport toyshop.

Tim Baldwin and I will be chairing the public seesions for the conference, which will be fun. I'll have to grow a ponytail.

See you at In the Chute.

...When Jews spoke of resurrection it was not something that they expected would happen to their god YHWH. Nor was it something that would happen to them again and again; it would be a single, unrepeatable event.
Likewise, when Christians spoke of the resurrection of Jesus they did not suppose it was something that happened every year, with the sowing of seed and the harvesting of crops. They could use the image of sowing and harvesting to talk about it; they could celebrate Jesus' death by breaking bread; but to confuse this with the world of the dying and rising gods would be a serious mistake. The early Christians did not engage in the relevant praxis; they only tangentially employed the same symbols... and they told a very different story from those of Adonis, Attis and the rest. Their answers to the worldview questions were radically different. And the set of beliefs and aims that were generated from within their worldview were simply not on the same map. It is of course quite possible that, when people in the wider world heard what the early Christians were saying, they attempted to fit the strange message into the worldview of cults they already knew. But the evidence suggests that they were more likely to be puzzled, or to mock. When Paul preached in Athens, nobody said, 'Ah, yes, a new version of Osiris and such like'. The Homeric assumption remained in force. Whatever the gods - or the crops - might do, humans did not rise from the dead.
- N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, p, 81.

Commitment and faithfulness aren't high on people's priority list today. Some students go to 4 different campus ministries, 3 different churches and 2 different Bible studies a week. We can't have leaders like this. We are looking for leaders that believe in the mission of this community. We are looking for leaders that are committed to this group of people. We look for leaders that have a passion for the campus they are on. This characteristic is non-negotiable. We can't beg someone to be committed to this community. They either are or are not. If they are then they should be considered for leadership. If not, then we still love them, serve them and include them in our community but they are not ready for leadership.

I've borrowed some ideas from Darryn Altclass and Al Hirsch's Forgotten Ways Handbook and written not only core values, but core practices for our student leadership team. This spells out the kind of commitment I am hoping for from our student leaders. They seemed pretty positive about the move. 

From Crux.

On the CASE website.

H/T Craig.

Grow.

H/T Justin Taylor.

Maybe it's possible Geneva will team up with AFES and run a church planting conference parallel to the National Training Event December 2010 where Don Carson will be preaching...

It could be that Geneva will be running the 2010 In the Chute Conference in Adelaide with Steve Timmis as one of the speakers...

I've heard that in February 2010 there'll be a gathering of the Geneva church planting coaches to hang out together and talk and pray about how to best support the next wave of church planters...

Register for In the Chute 2009 today.

"I'm successful in ministry."

Nick quotes Spurgeon telling a story about Whitfield:

George Whitefield said, when he preached on Kennington Common, where they threw dead cats and rotten eggs at him, "This is only the manure of Methodism, the best thing in the world to make it grow; throw away as fast as you please." And when a stone cut him on the forehead, he seemed to preach the better for a little blood-letting.

I reckon Al Stewart would like that quote.

Izaac shares his reflections on a tough church plant situation. It's great to hear stories like this, because if we only get told the success stories we get a false picture of reality, a false sense of God's sovereignty and no encouragement when our own efforts are struggling.

• How many people do you need to plant a church?
• Committed for the long haul
• A history of Cumberland Uni Church part I
• A history of Cumberland Uni Church part II
• A history of Cumberland Uni Church part III
  

Sandy has done a great series of posts on Sola Panel about a leadership book he's reading:

• Introduction
• Personal Issues
• Operational Issues I
• Operational Issues II
• Tactical Issues
• Strategic Issues I
  

Great example of carefully processing leadership material.

The danger of powerful parachurch movements, like AFES, Navigators or RICE, is that they undermine the local church. That's why it's so exciting to see that the new tentacle of RICE is a conference focused on teaching and empowering young Christians to serve in their local churches:

What is SURGE?? Steve Chong & Matt Chandler from SURGE on Vimeo.

Surge is the brainchild of Pete Chong and its inaugural conference will feature Steve Chong and Al Stewart.

Their goal is to think deeply about the nature of the church and also to provide guidance on how to understand your own spiritual gifts. Rather than young people waiting around being asked to do a job at church, Surge hopes to embolden them to take initiative in serving according to their gifts and the needs they see around them.

This is great, because churches will be renewed when more and more Christians play an active role. This is great, because churches thrive when they put the gifts of people before the pre-existing programs.

It is also an ingenious conference, because it seeks to be proactive about the topic of spiritual gifts. Rather than simply talk about which spiritual gifts we don't believe in, or only focusing on paid ministry, Surge will, God-willing give proper dignity to all the gifts Christ gives to his church.

Thanks to God, I've now got $50 000 pledged to the ministry at University Fellowship of Christians next year. Halfway to our $100 000 goal.

I'm now on the downhill slope, gathering together the final personal supporters. So I've been sitting down, calling people, then standing up and walking around, cause I find it hard to talk on the phone sitting down.

It's been kind of tiring, but kind of fun. I've been listening to Grizzly Bear while I do it.

I've also got a bit of a fundraising project going. I want to get office space and part-time admin staff for the ministry. So I'm inviting Christian business to kick in together $20 000 and then seeking to match that with another $20 000 from private donations. Half a dozen businesses have expressed some interest, so I'm praying that this will all come together in the next few weeks.

If you are interested in even giving a one-off donation to the work next year (which Tassie businesses will double - how's that for investment), please don't hesitate to get in touch!

DJ dropped Beyond Megachurch Myths: what we can learn from America's largest churches (S. Thumma and D. Travis) on my desk as a joke. I didn't realise it was a joke so I began to skim read it.
One thing that stood out to me was in the chapter "Megachurches water down the faith". This chapter pointed out that 40% of the weekly attendance of megachurches is the uncommitted fringe. In fact, since these people only come from time to time, their totaly number exceeds the overall weekly attendance!

Their observation was that megachurches kind of depend on these fringe dwellers:

These Marginal members as a group... contribute several critical characteristics of the megachurch on which its success is based... They fill the pews; they create the impression of a 'packed house'. Without them, the megachurch would be significantly smaller and less dynamic. These participants balance the intense commitment of the core and committed members.....These less involved members also contribute in terms of the successful reputation of the church in the community. They are the most numerous gropu in the public arena and in some ways the best evangelists for the church in that they are more 'in the world' than core church members.

More than that, the megachurch often does a better job than smaller churches at deliberately targeting the fringe. I remember in Seattle, hearing Andrew Heard say that you don't want too high a percentage of your church in small groups - because that means there aren't new people coming into your church! Megachurches recognise the opportunity:

These marginal participants are the church's internal mission field. The megachurch opens its doors to all marginal, anonymous participants, both seekers and spectators, in order to bring the mission field inside the walls of the church... They are tolerated within the congregation of moderate and committed members precisely because they represent those in need of spiritual maturity....

Where other churches miss the opportunity:

While pastors of other churches know implicitly that they have different levels of commitment in their congregation, they tend to speak primarily to the experiences of either the core group or the unbelievers... They treat the worship participants as a club of the saved, holding up expectations and challenges to help them mature further in their commitments, using language best suited for longtime Christians. Seldom are services or sermon intended to convince or inspire those with the potential to grow in the faith beyond just worship attendance. Many megachurch pastors, however, are well aware of this group in their midst and target the service, the sermon, and the ministries to all those present in the congregation, whether core and highly committed members of marginal members, occasional seekers and first-time inquirers.

One application of this, as Dan suggested on the MTS Tasmania blog, is in addition to putting effort and planning into the mission campaign (for the non-Christian) and the vision campain/conference (for the core), we should consider occasionally doing the Christian maturity campaign for the fringe dwellers.

Can others give examples of how this is working in your context?

It was my last sermon at Crossroads' largest service - Crossroads Classic - last night. I preached on the parable of the prodigal son.

The band offered Nikki and I to 'curate' the songs for that service. This what ministers do every week in traditional churches but it's a novelty for Crossroads. Here's what I chose:

• When I Survey the Wondrous Cross - with the alternate melody, kind of celtic sounding with a long note on sur-VEY.
• Be Strong and Courageous - this is one of Xavvy's bedtime songs. I didn't realise Colin Buchannan wrote it, because it sounds like a fireside chorus that's been sung for decades. Beautiful song, wistful and child-like without being twee.
• Shout to the Lord - a masterpiece Christian power ballad. The reprise of the chorus 'I sing for joy...' sends tingles.
  

What would you have chosen - favourite three?