1. Some people are poisonous, some people are venomous. Both are danger, but each are different.


2. I love Challies’ mooshy posts about his wife. 18 Things I Will Not Regret Doing With My Wife (and also 18 Things… My Kids)


3. Stu gives us some language for talking about different kinds of preaching gifts, without implying one kind of preacher is ‘better’ than another: convention preacher vs congregation preacher.


4. Dave Moore rightly disagrees that gospel workers must have secular work experience to be good ministers.


5. Haha: one more Challies gooey post about his wife. This one is lovely - “She strengthens me”.


6. Are you able to contribute a small amount to our mission work on campus at UTAS? We are currently running a fundraising drive.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://thegenevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/mirrors-20th-december-2013 (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

In this great session from Andrew Heard with the FIEC in the UK, he pulls apart the way we sentimentalise biblical metaphors for church and ministry.

We think shepherd/pastor involves a gentle, cuddly, counselling model of ministry. But in the Bible the shepherd was the ruler, leader, protector of his flock.

And we think the family metaphor implies the small, casual, informal Western nuclear family of a couple with 2 kids. But what of the family with 9 children? Such a family needs to be highly regimented and organised, with good routines and delegation in place. And yet it is not somehow less a family for that.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://thegenevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/dont-sentimentalise-biblical-metaphors-for-church-and-ministry (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

Modern evangelical theo-psychology has over-defined idols in a way that doesn’t make sense of historical idolatry or human sin. Take for example Keller’s definition from Counterfeit Gods:

What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give

Just as Calvin said the human nature is heart is a perpetual factory of idols, so modern evangelical pop-psychology is a factory of idol-talk. And I think it’s run away from itself. Ten years ago sin was wrongly defined as fundamentally ‘selfishness’. Now it defined as fundamentally ‘idolatry’. Both are inaccurate.

In the first place, idolatry is first bad because it is a sin of false religion. Religious idolatry is wicked, even if there is no emotional engagement with it. It is wicked to perform acts of worship to a false god, even if I don’t especially care about that god. I worry that in leaving the literal definition of idolatry in favour of metaphorical psychologising, we will stop rebuking literal idolatry.

But more than this, idols are PLURAL in the Bible. Idolatry is not monotheistic. To look to one God to be at the centre of our life and consume our hopes, desires and service is a monotheistic thing. Idols did not demand that exclusive service in ancient paganism. Idolatry does not demand the kind of monotheistic worship.

Indeed idolatry can be quite emotionally distant. I don’t need to be all-absorbed by the idol. I USE the idol. Give the sacrifice in order to get a benefit. Idolatry is more pragmatic than monotheism.

In the Old Testament, idolatry is compared the the adultery of sleeping around, not the modern adultery of falling in love with a mistress. idolatry is not finding a ‘new wife’ in a false god, but running after petty pleasures from multiple partners. So do we turn aside form God and find another idol to meet all those needs? Maybe. Or maybe we drift from fix to fix, in a series of idolatrous one-night-stands.

Now you COULD say that this is because there is an underlying ‘heart-idol’ that leads us to restlessly run from thing to thing. But at this point I wonder whether we’ve left biblical talk about idolatry behind and invented a whole new layer of evangeli-psychology. Is ‘idol’ the right category for this underlying evil drive. Or is the word for that just ‘sin’?

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://thegenevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/an-idol-isnt-an-all-consuming-object-of-worship (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

I wrote this post yesterday and it has disappeared. Let’s hope it works this time.

So your non-Christian friend asks you about same-sex marriage. You take Peter Jensen’s advice to heart: this might be your only opportunity to talk about the gospel with them: what are you going to say?

Well after quickly talking about your belief in objective, biological gender difference and the legitimacy of basing sexual ethics on biological gender and procreation (Part 1) ... what are avenues to talking about the gospel?

1. Objective gender and the gospel: unity in diversity

I think the best one with regard to gender diversity is to talk about how Christian theology as a whole holds together unity and diversity on many levels. We don’t believe in a fragmented universe. Nor do we believe that things will ultimately all merge onto a single unity. We believe in a diverse but unified reality.

It’s interesting that some religious and spiritual views that believe in an ultimate One, use trasvesticism and homosexuality in their religious practice as a way of blurring distinctions and so moving back to the one.

God himself is three persons in one essence. He made the world, not an emanation from himself, but a free and distinct creation out of nothing. That creation has many different parts two it but is one creation. Humanity were made male and female but were to unite together as one flesh. The hope of heaven is also to be brought under one head, Christ, but still to remain a distinct new creation.

So gender difference is not a problem that must be fixed by trying to create an undifferentiated androgynous humanity. It actually reflects something of the nature of God, his world and his plans for salvation.

2. Heterosexuality and the gospel: diversity, affection, intimacy, faithfulness and fruitfulness

Heterosexual sexuality provides a picture of the covenant love of God in a unique way, that homosexual relationships cannot: the diversity-in-unity of male and female, the affection, the intimacy, the covenant faithfulness, and the potential for creative fruitfulness in child bearing.

A homosexual relationship might express the affection, intimacy and faithfulness, but it cannot show the diversity-in-unity in the same way, nor naturally show the creative overflow of love in childbearing.

In celebrating the unique two-become one, affectionate, faithful, intimate and fruitful relationship of marriage we can show how it is a unique picture of Christ and the church.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://thegenevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/seizing-the-gospel-opportunity-of-a-conversation-about-same-sex-marriage-2 (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

Yesterday at Multiply13, I launched the 3rd Geneva Push website redesign. The site now highlights more than ever its role as a warehouse of resources. The design is more bright and friendly, rather than grungy and the website itself is ‘responsive’ - so it looks/behaves like an app when viewed on your phone or tablet.

We have also a pretty new promo video*:

Our vision for Australia from Geneva Push on Vimeo.

*Fun fact: the girl I’m talking to the video is my younger sister Alice.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://thegenevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/new-geneva-responsive-site-and-new-geneva-promo-vid (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

Rather than measure attendance on a Sunday or membership role, measure how many people are actively engaged in the ministry of the church:

• Workers serving in ongoing roles


• Leaders owning that role, training for it and seeking to involve others.


• A leader of leaders who recruits, trains and overseers leaders to work with him or her.

Do you have leaders and LEADERS or leaders who are not on the paid staff of your church?

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://thegenevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/what-do-you-measure-attendance-or-service (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

From Ed Stetzer:

1. Pastor (may need an administrator - every church needs one person who is administratively gifted)


2. Music leader: gain a Western cultural ‘need’ to have a devoted music leader.


3. Preschool/children’s leader


4. Assimilation coordinator: a dogged determination to not let anyone fall through the cracks. Not just ‘be my friend’, but ‘join my church’.


5. Outreach networker.


6. Spiritual gifts mobiliser: help people to discover and deploy their gifts.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://thegenevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/key-leaders-need-to-help-churches-grow (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

Listening to Ed Stetzer on breaking growth barriers in new churches. He quoted Darryn Patrick:

Largely because most pastors don’t know how to build systems, structures, and processes that are not contingent upon them. Most pastors can care for people, but don’t build systems of care. Most pastors can develop leaders individually, but lack the skill to implement a process of leadership development. When a pastor can’t build systems and structures that support ministry, the only people who are cared for or empowered to lead are those who are “near” the pastor or those very close to the pastor. This limits the size of the church to the size of the pastor.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://thegenevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/why-many-churches-struggle-to-grow (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

It’s a queer little phrase in Hebrews 9:14:

How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

God made the world when the Father through the Spirit spoke the world into being. Or again, the Father sends the Spirit to apply the work of Christ to us. And in prayer we approach the Father in Christ’s name by the Holy Spirit.

But how does the atonement ITSELF work out from a trinitarian point of view? Hebrews 9:14 is the only passage I can think of that explicitly includes the Holy Spirit in the mix. This makes it a little harder to know exactly what Hebrews 9:14 is describing. Here are some thoughts:

1. God the Holy Spirit seals and anoints Christ as an acceptable sacrifice.


2. God the Holy Spirit empowered God the Son in his incarnate act of obedient self sacrifice.


3. God the Holy Spirit operated as the effectual administrator of the atonement as it took place: he was active in the ‘making him as sin who knew no sin’.

Keen to hear you response to my suggestions, as well as suggestions of your own. Also keen to hear of other passages in Scripture that address this question.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://thegenevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/jesus-offered-himself-through-the-spirit-on-the-cross (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

1. We can demonise the past or sentimentalise the past. These photos help us see the past as the same as the present: ordinary people.


2. Rhys Muldoon is one of my favourite kids entertainers (I could never bear the Wiggles: ugh!). In this article from the Age, he talks about his negative experience of going to Hillsong.


3. Nikki and I are big fans of Alain de Boton. But his ‘religion for atheists’ thing is fascinatingly pathetic. It’s kind of like ‘romance for singles’. Anyway, in this post, Dan Anderson critiques the de Boton.


4. Simone Richardson has been posting some really insightful stuff about pastors, assistant pastors, conflict and personality types:
   
   
   
   • The ESTJ minister
   
   
   • The ENFP minister
   
   
   • Staffing issues at church: why senior ministers have conflicts with assistant ministers.
   
   
   
   


5. Lists of ‘how technology has ruined life’ are generally tiresome: they blame technology for human disorganisation or sin and they sentimentalise technology and culture of a previous era (see point 1 in this edition of Mirrors!). But there’s some nice ideas in this list, to plan some time for in the New Year.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://thegenevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/mirrors-29th-november-2013 (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

1. Plan and prepare how much of the illustration you will quote verbatim, and how much you will paraphrase. It is easier to listen to if you only quote the most necessary bits, and fill in the gaps in your own words.


2. Take the time to get the relevant facts straight. Figure out the name of the person who won Survivor. Get the date correct. Or whatever.


3. Is it dense language or a complex story? Which parts do you need to slow down or repeat? Which bits need a brief explanatory aside?


4. Figure out what it is about the illustration that attracted you to it, and make sure you make that bit come alive: is it the key word you need to memorise? The dramatic pause before the reveal? One particularly crisp turn of phrase?


5. Perhaps ‘preach’ or ‘expound’ the illustration a little - unpack its power, weave it back into the point you are making in your sermon.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://thegenevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/sermon-illustrations-part-6-how-to-deliver-illustrations (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

To implement the 5Ms, or almost any other ministry model, you need to start building an organisational structure to your ministry and you need to establish teams. If this structure is going to stay standing and these teams are going to stay functional, you are going to have to start managing/bishopping.

It is a big turning point in a ministry’s life when it breaks out of the single leader’s personal (dis)organisational system. When the ministry is no longer largely controlled by your desktop, your diary, your calendar, your control - it is free to spread and expand. Responsibility is more like information than money: it spreads and increases, rather than simply changing hands.

How can you make the change:

• From one central control (the pastor, the eldership, the steering committee) of all actions, projects, ideas and decisions to multiple centres of control, where the centre provides a high-level oversight?


• From managing every job by a roster (based on duty - everyone taking turns), to giving over areas of responsibility to teams (based on vision and belonging - everyone having a unique part to play)?


• From a cloud of random ministries, jobs and roles largely driven by tradition or by being reactive and largely organised based on who-knows-who to a clear overall ministry structure, that gets built and streamlined?


• From either micromanaging or abdicating to managing in ways that provides direction, accountability, alignment, urgency, coaching and support?

And in keeping with the rest of this series. If you can’t figure out how to administer and oversee teams and organisational structure, your 5Ms attempt will most likely be dead in the water.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://thegenevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/dissecting-the-5ms-part-3-org-charts-teams-and-management (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

1. Store them separately from the sermon in which you first used them. You want to be able to find the illustration easily, without having to remember which sermon you used it in!


2. File in as simple an A-Z filing system as possible. That limits the number of levels in which something can be hidden. Harder to find things once they are three-layers deep in a file-folder structure.


3. Don’t bother saving them. Just let Google store them for you. For many illustrations it’s probably easier to find the quote again by googling, than by searching your own file system!


4. Own the fact that like with all filing, you may only use 5% of your illustrations again. You are storing everything because you don’t know which 5% you’ll use again! Regular reviewing and purging will help keep it under control.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://thegenevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/sermon-illustrations-part-5-how-to-store-illustrations (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

1. My church has been doing a kind of pre-evangelism/diaconal ministry, running ‘open forums’ on issues where people in our community need help, support and advice. We have done ‘marriage’ and ‘parenting’ and just recently I participated in a panel on ‘building better staff’ at a small business event. You can listen to the audio here. These events have been run exceptionally well and the content has been great too. They are a great way to give friends/acquaintances/colleagues a first-contact with the church.


2. Steve Kruyger puts into words what I’ve been thinking for a long time: 5 reasons not to provide a feedback form at an event.


3. Kevin de Young challenges preachers to ask of their next sermon: “Can I make my best point–the one I’m most excited about, the one I can’t wait to deliver–without noting anything from this week’s passage?”


4. Dave Moore advises us to answer questions with statements (that is, actually answer the question) and statements with questions (that is, try to figure out why someone wanted to make the comment they made).


5. I know we talk a lot about ‘mummy guilt’ but I can definitely relate to Challies post about ‘daddy guilt’. I often get ‘Cat’s in the Cradle’ (the superior Ugly Kid Joe version) playing in my head, when I really don’t have the power to go out and play soccer at 6:30pm at night:
   

   I don’t think I failed the family. The simple fact is that I need rest. With the march of age and the weight of responsibility, Aileen and I need it more than the children do. I believe I served them better by taking a few days to not rush around, to not expend a lot of effort and energy, but instead to enjoy deep rest. I believe I can serve my family better now that I have experienced this rest.

   
   


6. Sam Rainer reminds us that if a church is health and growing then it will be messy!

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://thegenevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/mirrors-15th-november-2013 (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

1. Everyday experience. Creative writing workshops always urgent writers to carry a pen and paper with them everywhere, to help them be alert to potential material wherever they go, and be ready to capture it.


2. Drawing out the content in the passage you are preaching on.


3. Other parts of the Bible.


4. Faux-etymologies: ‘dunamis’ is the word from which we get ‘dynamite’ from. This is poor exegesis but makes for colourful illustration. As long as you are clear that you are not doing exegesis.


5. From current events.


6. From literature, songs, movies or pop culture.


7. Nature and science.


8. History.


9. Popular level Christian books - often they are really just sermons turned into book form, so they have good illustrations.


10. Dictionaries of quotations.


11. Sermon illustrations websites.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://thegenevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/sermon-illustrations-part-4-where-to-find-illustrations (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

1. Greek scholars admit to inventing Ancient Greece. This funny spoof is a great way of exposing how silly a lot of the Jesus myth conspiracy theory stuff that gets trotted out. Did you see that latest one? New evidence ‘Roman creed’ that demonstrates that the Romans invented Jesus… what was the ‘new evidence’? The Works of Josephus!?! Sigh.


2. Challies interviews John MacArthur about the anti-charismatic ‘Strange Fire’ conference. MacArthur says some sensible stuff, including answers to people who say that he should’ve had more ‘forums’ and ‘heard from both sides’:
   

   Our decision not to host a debate at the Strange Fire Conference was intentional. Debates are rarely effective in truly helping people think carefully through the issues, since they can easily be reduced to sound bites and talking points. By contrast, a clear understanding of biblical truth comes from a faithful study of the Scriptures. Our hope is that the conference sparked a renewed desire for that kind diligent study on this important issue. I also expect continuationists to respond in writing to the things I have written in the book. I welcome that kind of interchange. It allows people to think carefully, over a prolonged period of time, about the arguments on both sides of the issue. It has always been through the written word that theological disputes like this have been grappled with in church history. That requires the kind of devotion and effort that brings serious discussion to the fore. I have taken those pains in Strange Fire, and would hope that others would interact on that same level.

   
   


3. Simone shares a new theory on different kinds of expository preaching that suit different temperaments of people. I think she’s onto something.


4. An interview on the Harvard Business Review Ideacast that states the obvious: working fathers struggle with work-life balance as much as working mothers. Along the way it makes the observation that white-collar men sometimes transfer machismo to working long hours, instead of having big muscles and being able to fight fires. It also reminds us that the idea of man going ‘off to work’ and leaving woman ‘at home’ as a relatively recent construct.


5. How a late-person thinks. I posted this on my Facebook and it caused a comment flame war. Seems that early-people don’t have a sense of humour after all :-P It’s a silly little article, but I think it captures the outlook of the late-person. These differences do exist, even if you work on them. I have disciplined myself to become punctual. And yet I am STILL more likely to be mildly late, in contrast to an ‘early person’.


6. I recently preached on guidance and decision making at our final ‘Citywide Gathering’ for the year.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://thegenevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/mirrors-8th-november-2013 (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

When you study Greek at Bible College, you have to learn the dozen ways in which a genitive can be used: the possessive genitive, the genitive of apposition, the subjective or object genitive, the partitive genitive and so on. And within each of these categories there are finer differences.

But it seems that often in conversation with ministers this subtlety gets lost. There are many ways of using the genitive. Indeed there are many ways of just using a possessive pronoun ‘mine’, ‘our’. However piety and politics won’t have it:

The pedantry of piety: It’s not YOUR church, it’s JESUS’ church

Sure it’s a good rhetorical line. And talking often about ‘my church’ MAY betray a deeper presumption and pride.

But talking about ‘my church’ may well just be a way of saying ‘the church I fellowship with’, ‘the church where I minister’. There’s nothing theologically suspect or dishonouring to Jesus in that construction.

The pedantry of politics: They’re not YOUR churches, they’re OUR churches

Sometimes parachurch networks, like MTS or Geneva will get pulled up by denominational leaders: ‘Stop talking about YOUR churches, they say. These are not ‘MTS churches’ these are ANGLICAN (Presbyterian/Baptist/foo) churches.’

Of course on the level constitutional precision this is correct. And it MAY be responding to a legitimate quasi-anti-denominationalism. (Of course it MAY ALSO betray a territorial spirit in the heart of the denominational leader - perhaps we need to get a bit pious and remember: they’re JESUS’ churches!)

But talking about ‘our churches’ may also merely be another way of saying ‘the churches affiliated with our network.’

It is possible for the same church to be Jesus’ church, my church, a Baptist church AND an MTS church.

NEXT WEEK: the pedantry and piety of datives…

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://thegenevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/not-your-churches-the-pedantry-of-piety-and-politics (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

1. When they need explaining!


2. When they leave people wondering: ‘What happened next?’ or ‘Is that accurate?’


3. When they clash: with your personality or the culture of the congregation. If you come across as proud, or the illustration seems in bad taste, if they don’t fit your personality, if they don’t with with the knowledge and interest of your hearers, if they are inaccurate or inauthentic.


4. If they overtake the sermon: too funny, too emotional powerful, too long.


5. If they include a theological distortion.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://thegenevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/sermon-illustrations-part-3-why-illustrations-fail (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

1. Steve Kruyger gives a 3 examples of how churches figure out what things to advertise the most.


2. Did you hear about the John Macarthur anti-charismatic conference? A big hoo-ha in the USA, but a slightly different scene to here in Australia. This post, from Kevin DeYoung, clarifies how the Puritans would be BOTH ‘cessationists’ in one sense (WCF 1.1: ” those former ways of God’s revealing his will unto his people being now ceased.”), and yet also have a place for ongoing ‘secondary’ kinds of revelation:
   

   A detailed analysis of the writings of the Westminster divines reveals that these churchmen possessed both a strong desire to maintain the unity of Word and Spirit and a concern to safeguard the freedom of the Holy Spirit to speak to particular circumstances through the language and principles of Scripture. God still enabled predictive prophecy and spoke to individuals in extraordinary ways, but contemporary prophecy was held to be something different from the extraordinary prophecy of New Testament figures. In the minds of the Scottish Presbyterians and English Puritans, prophecy was considered to be an application of Scripture for a specific situation, not an announcement of new information not contained within the Bible. The Scripture always remained essential for the process of discerning God’s will.

   
   


3. Steve Kruyger has picked out some highlights from Kevin DeYoung’s book ‘Crazy Busy’. I liked these ones:
   

   We’re not actually in danger of working too hard. We simply work hard at things in the wrong proportions. If you work eighty hours a week and never see your kids and never talk to your wife, people may call you a workaholic. And no doubt you’re putting a lot of effort into your career. But you may not be working very hard at being a dad or being a husband or being a man after God’s own heart.

   
   And:
   

   Stewarding my time is not about selfishly pursuing only the things I like to do. It’s about effectively serving others in the ways I’m best able to serve and in the ways I am most uniquely called to serve…“Unseized” time tends to flow toward our weakness, get swallowed up by dominant people, and surrender to the demands of emergencies. So unless God intends for us to serve only the loudest, neediest, most intimidating people, we need to plan ahead, set priorities, and serve more wisely so that we might serve more effectively.

   
   


4. Simone gives a rich analysis of reasons for conflict between a senior minister and an assistant minister. She manages to tackle it without attacking one side or the other. She also recognises the unique nature of ministry, rather than just blaming ministers for being petty or unprofessional. And best of all she gives great concrete advice, too! Thanks Simone!

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://thegenevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/mirrors-1st-november-2013 (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

One of the most bizarre discoveries for people is that Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City has paid non-Christian musicians to play music in their church services.

Most Australians I know really balk at this. It feels unspiritual. Mercenary. Selling out on the community of God’s people for the sake of quality. No only to have non-Christians… but to PAY them!?

I remember somewhere reading Tim Keller make a peculiar theological argument for how this was fulfilling in part the Old Testament prophecies about the Gentiles singing praises to the Lord. I read those prophecies as being fulfilled when the Gentiles come to put their hope the Lord.

BUT

I think there is a much more simple, historical justification: accompanying music is not that big a deal. Our conviction that the musicians must be Christian, it seems to me, is in part the fruit of the modern ‘worship’ movement.

It is not a big deal for an old traditional church to pay an organist to come in and play the organ for their services. Because it’s just a backing instrument. The congregational singing is the big thing. We might pay a non-Christian gardener or a non-Christian accountant. Why not a non-Christian backing musician?

It is in part that we have over-spiritualised and over-centralised the role of band in our church services that we find it strange to have non-Christians in the band and to pay them to do it.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://thegenevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/its-ok-to-pay-non-christians-to-play-music-in-church-services (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

Rather than measure attendance on a Sunday or membership role, measure how many people are actively engaged in the ministry of the church:

• Workers serving in ongoing roles


• Leaders owning that role, training for it and seeking to involve others.


• A leader of leaders who recruits, trains and overseers leaders to work with him or her.

Do you have leaders and LEADERS or leaders who are not on the paid staff of your church?

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/what-do-you-measure-attendance-or-service (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

From Ed Stetzer:

1. Pastor (may need an administrator - every church needs one person who is administratively gifted)


2. Music leader: gain a Western cultural ‘need’ to have a devoted music leader.


3. Preschool/children’s leader


4. Assimilation coordinator: a dogged determination to not let anyone fall through the cracks. Not just ‘be my friend’, but ‘join my church’.


5. Outreach networker.


6. Spiritual gifts mobiliser: help people to discover and deploy their gifts.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/key-leaders-need-to-help-churches-grow (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

Listening to Ed Stetzer on breaking growth barriers in new churches. He quoted Darryn Patrick:

Largely because most pastors don’t know how to build systems, structures, and processes that are not contingent upon them. Most pastors can care for people, but don’t build systems of care. Most pastors can develop leaders individually, but lack the skill to implement a process of leadership development. When a pastor can’t build systems and structures that support ministry, the only people who are cared for or empowered to lead are those who are “near” the pastor or those very close to the pastor. This limits the size of the church to the size of the pastor.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/why-many-churches-struggle-to-grow (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

It’s a queer little phrase in Hebrews 9:14:

How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

God made the world when the Father through the Spirit spoke the world into being. Or again, the Father sends the Spirit to apply the work of Christ to us. And in prayer we approach the Father in Christ’s name by the Holy Spirit.

But how does the atonement ITSELF work out from a trinitarian point of view? Hebrews 9:14 is the only passage I can think of that explicitly includes the Holy Spirit in the mix. This makes it a little harder to know exactly what Hebrews 9:14 is describing. Here are some thoughts:

1. God the Holy Spirit seals and anoints Christ as an acceptable sacrifice.


2. God the Holy Spirit empowered God the Son in his incarnate act of obedient self sacrifice.


3. God the Holy Spirit operated as the effectual administrator of the atonement as it took place: he was active in the ‘making him as sin who knew no sin’.

Keen to hear you response to my suggestions, as well as suggestions of your own. Also keen to hear of other passages in Scripture that address this question.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/jesus-offered-himself-through-the-spirit-on-the-cross (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

1. We can demonise the past or sentimentalise the past. These photos help us see the past as the same as the present: ordinary people.


2. Rhys Muldoon is one of my favourite kids entertainers (I could never bear the Wiggles: ugh!). In this article from the Age, he talks about his negative experience of going to Hillsong.


3. Nikki and I are big fans of Alain de Boton. But his ‘religion for atheists’ thing is fascinatingly pathetic. It’s kind of like ‘romance for singles’. Anyway, in this post, Dan Anderson critiques the de Boton.


4. Simone Richardson has been posting some really insightful stuff about pastors, assistant pastors, conflict and personality types:
   
   
   
   • The ESTJ minister
   
   
   • The ENFP minister
   
   
   • Staffing issues at church: why senior ministers have conflicts with assistant ministers.
   
   
   
   


5. Lists of ‘how technology has ruined life’ are generally tiresome: they blame technology for human disorganisation or sin and they sentimentalise technology and culture of a previous era (see point 1 in this edition of Mirrors!). But there’s some nice ideas in this list, to plan some time for in the New Year.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/mirrors-29th-november-2013 (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

1. Plan and prepare how much of the illustration you will quote verbatim, and how much you will paraphrase. It is easier to listen to if you only quote the most necessary bits, and fill in the gaps in your own words.


2. Take the time to get the relevant facts straight. Figure out the name of the person who won Survivor. Get the date correct. Or whatever.


3. Is it dense language or a complex story? Which parts do you need to slow down or repeat? Which bits need a brief explanatory aside?


4. Figure out what it is about the illustration that attracted you to it, and make sure you make that bit come alive: is it the key word you need to memorise? The dramatic pause before the reveal? One particularly crisp turn of phrase?


5. Perhaps ‘preach’ or ‘expound’ the illustration a little - unpack its power, weave it back into the point you are making in your sermon.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/sermon-illustrations-part-6-how-to-deliver-illustrations (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

To implement the 5Ms, or almost any other ministry model, you need to start building an organisational structure to your ministry and you need to establish teams. If this structure is going to stay standing and these teams are going to stay functional, you are going to have to start managing/bishopping.

It is a big turning point in a ministry’s life when it breaks out of the single leader’s personal (dis)organisational system. When the ministry is no longer largely controlled by your desktop, your diary, your calendar, your control - it is free to spread and expand. Responsibility is more like information than money: it spreads and increases, rather than simply changing hands.

How can you make the change:

• From one central control (the pastor, the eldership, the steering committee) of all actions, projects, ideas and decisions to multiple centres of control, where the centre provides a high-level oversight?


• From managing every job by a roster (based on duty - everyone taking turns), to giving over areas of responsibility to teams (based on vision and belonging - everyone having a unique part to play)?


• From a cloud of random ministries, jobs and roles largely driven by tradition or by being reactive and largely organised based on who-knows-who to a clear overall ministry structure, that gets built and streamlined?


• From either micromanaging or abdicating to managing in ways that provides direction, accountability, alignment, urgency, coaching and support?

And in keeping with the rest of this series. If you can’t figure out how to administer and oversee teams and organisational structure, your 5Ms attempt will most likely be dead in the water.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/dissecting-the-5ms-part-3-org-charts-teams-and-management (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

1. Store them separately from the sermon in which you first used them. You want to be able to find the illustration easily, without having to remember which sermon you used it in!


2. File in as simple an A-Z filing system as possible. That limits the number of levels in which something can be hidden. Harder to find things once they are three-layers deep in a file-folder structure.


3. Don’t bother saving them. Just let Google store them for you. For many illustrations it’s probably easier to find the quote again by googling, than by searching your own file system!


4. Own the fact that like with all filing, you may only use 5% of your illustrations again. You are storing everything because you don’t know which 5% you’ll use again! Regular reviewing and purging will help keep it under control.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/sermon-illustrations-part-5-how-to-store-illustrations (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

1. My church has been doing a kind of pre-evangelism/diaconal ministry, running ‘open forums’ on issues where people in our community need help, support and advice. We have done ‘marriage’ and ‘parenting’ and just recently I participated in a panel on ‘building better staff’ at a small business event. You can listen to the audio here. These events have been run exceptionally well and the content has been great too. They are a great way to give friends/acquaintances/colleagues a first-contact with the church.


2. Steve Kruyger puts into words what I’ve been thinking for a long time: 5 reasons not to provide a feedback form at an event.


3. Kevin de Young challenges preachers to ask of their next sermon: “Can I make my best point–the one I’m most excited about, the one I can’t wait to deliver–without noting anything from this week’s passage?”


4. Dave Moore advises us to answer questions with statements (that is, actually answer the question) and statements with questions (that is, try to figure out why someone wanted to make the comment they made).


5. I know we talk a lot about ‘mummy guilt’ but I can definitely relate to Challies post about ‘daddy guilt’. I often get ‘Cat’s in the Cradle’ (the superior Ugly Kid Joe version) playing in my head, when I really don’t have the power to go out and play soccer at 6:30pm at night:
   

   I don’t think I failed the family. The simple fact is that I need rest. With the march of age and the weight of responsibility, Aileen and I need it more than the children do. I believe I served them better by taking a few days to not rush around, to not expend a lot of effort and energy, but instead to enjoy deep rest. I believe I can serve my family better now that I have experienced this rest.

   
   


6. Sam Rainer reminds us that if a church is health and growing then it will be messy!

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/mirrors-15th-november-2013 (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

1. Everyday experience. Creative writing workshops always urgent writers to carry a pen and paper with them everywhere, to help them be alert to potential material wherever they go, and be ready to capture it.


2. Drawing out the content in the passage you are preaching on.


3. Other parts of the Bible.


4. Faux-etymologies: ‘dunmis’ is the word from which we get ‘dynamite’ from. This is poor exegesis but makes for colourful illustration. As long as you are clear that you are not doing exegesis.


5. From current events.


6. From literature, songs, movies or pop culture.


7. Nature and science.


8. History.


9. Popular level Christian books - often they are really just sermons turned into book form, so they have good illustrations.


10. Dictionaries of quotations.


11. Sermon illustrations websites.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/sermon-illustrations-part-4-where-to-find-illustrations (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

1. Greek scholars admit to inventing Ancient Greece. This funny spoof is a great way of exposing how silly a lot of the Jesus myth conspiracy theory stuff that gets trotted out. Did you see that latest one? New evidence ‘Roman creed’ that demonstrates that the Romans invented Jesus… what was the ‘new evidence’? The Works of Josephus!?! Sigh.


2. Challies interviews John MacArthur about the anti-charismatic ‘Strange Fire’ conference. MacArthur says some sensible stuff, including answers to people who say that he should’ve had more ‘forums’ and ‘heard from both sides’:
   

   Our decision not to host a debate at the Strange Fire Conference was intentional. Debates are rarely effective in truly helping people think carefully through the issues, since they can easily be reduced to sound bites and talking points. By contrast, a clear understanding of biblical truth comes from a faithful study of the Scriptures. Our hope is that the conference sparked a renewed desire for that kind diligent study on this important issue. I also expect continuationists to respond in writing to the things I have written in the book. I welcome that kind of interchange. It allows people to think carefully, over a prolonged period of time, about the arguments on both sides of the issue. It has always been through the written word that theological disputes like this have been grappled with in church history. That requires the kind of devotion and effort that brings serious discussion to the fore. I have taken those pains in Strange Fire, and would hope that others would interact on that same level.

   
   


3. Simone shares a new theory on different kinds of expository preaching that suit different temperaments of people. I think she’s onto something.


4. An interview on the Harvard Business Review Ideacast that states the obvious: working fathers struggle with work-life balance as much as working mothers. Along the way it makes the observation that white-collar men sometimes transfer machismo to working long hours, instead of having big muscles and being able to fight fires. It also reminds us that the idea of man going ‘off to work’ and leaving woman ‘at home’ as a relatively recent construct.


5. How a late-person thinks. I posted this on my Facebook and it caused a comment flame war. Seems that early-people don’t have a sense of humour after all :-P It’s a silly little article, but I think it captures the outlook of the late-person. These differences do exist, even if you work on them. I have disciplined myself to become punctual. And yet I am STILL more likely to be mildly late, in contrast to an ‘early person’.


6. I recently preached on guidance and decision making at our final ‘Citywide Gathering’ for the year.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/mirrors-8th-november-2013 (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

When you study Greek at Bible College, you have to learn the dozen ways in which a genitive can be used: the possessive genitive, the genitive of apposition, the subjective or object genitive, the partitive genitive and so on. And within each of these categories there are finer differences.

But it seems that often in conversation with ministers this subtlety gets lost. There are many ways of using the genitive. Indeed there are many ways of just using a possessive pronoun ‘mine’, ‘our’. However piety and politics won’t have it:

The pedantry of piety: It’s not YOUR church, it’s JESUS’ church

Sure it’s a good rhetorical line. And talking often about ‘my church’ MAY betray a deeper presumption and pride.

But talking about ‘my church’ may well just be a way of saying ‘the church I fellowship with’, ‘the church where I minister’. There’s nothing theologically suspect or dishonouring to Jesus in that construction.

The pedantry of politics: They’re not YOUR churches, they’re OUR churches

Sometimes parachurch networks, like MTS or Geneva will get pulled up by denominational leaders: ‘Stop talking about YOUR churches, they say. These are not ‘MTS churches’ these are ANGLICAN (Presbyterian/Baptist/foo) churches.’

Of course on the level constitutional precision this is correct. And it MAY be responding to a legitimate quasi-anti-denominationalism. (Of course it MAY ALSO betray a territorial spirit in the heart of the denominational leader - perhaps we need to get a bit pious and remember: they’re JESUS’ churches!)

But talking about ‘our churches’ may also merely be another way of saying ‘the churches affiliated with our network.’

It is possible for the same church to be Jesus’ church, my church, a Baptist church AND an MTS church.

NEXT WEEK: the pedantry and piety of datives…

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/not-your-churches-the-pedantry-of-piety-and-politics (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

1. When they need explaining!


2. When they leave people wondering: ‘What happened next?’ or ‘Is that accurate?’


3. When they clash: with your personality or the culture of the congregation. If you come across as proud, or the illustration seems in bad taste, if they don’t fit your personality, if they don’t with with the knowledge and interest of your hearers, if they are inaccurate or inauthentic.


4. If they overtake the sermon: too funny, too emotional powerful, too long.


5. If they include a theological distortion.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/sermon-illustrations-part-3-why-illustrations-fail (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

1. Steve Kruyger gives a 3 examples of how churches figure out what things to advertise the most.


2. Did you hear about the John Macarthur anti-charismatic conference? A big hoo-ha in the USA, but a slightly different scene to here in Australia. This post, from Kevin DeYoung, clarifies how the Puritans would be BOTH ‘cessationists’ in one sense (WCF 1.1: ” those former ways of God’s revealing his will unto his people being now ceased.”), and yet also have a place for ongoing ‘secondary’ kinds of revelation:
   

   A detailed analysis of the writings of the Westminster divines reveals that these churchmen possessed both a strong desire to maintain the unity of Word and Spirit and a concern to safeguard the freedom of the Holy Spirit to speak to particular circumstances through the language and principles of Scripture. God still enabled predictive prophecy and spoke to individuals in extraordinary ways, but contemporary prophecy was held to be something different from the extraordinary prophecy of New Testament figures. In the minds of the Scottish Presbyterians and English Puritans, prophecy was considered to be an application of Scripture for a specific situation, not an announcement of new information not contained within the Bible. The Scripture always remained essential for the process of discerning God’s will.

   
   


3. Steve Kruyger has picked out some highlights from Kevin DeYoung’s book ‘Crazy Busy’. I liked these ones:
   

   We’re not actually in danger of working too hard. We simply work hard at things in the wrong proportions. If you work eighty hours a week and never see your kids and never talk to your wife, people may call you a workaholic. And no doubt you’re putting a lot of effort into your career. But you may not be working very hard at being a dad or being a husband or being a man after God’s own heart.

   
   And:
   

   Stewarding my time is not about selfishly pursuing only the things I like to do. It’s about effectively serving others in the ways I’m best able to serve and in the ways I am most uniquely called to serve…“Unseized” time tends to flow toward our weakness, get swallowed up by dominant people, and surrender to the demands of emergencies. So unless God intends for us to serve only the loudest, neediest, most intimidating people, we need to plan ahead, set priorities, and serve more wisely so that we might serve more effectively.

   
   


4. Simone gives a rich analysis of reasons for conflict between a senior minister and an assistant minister. She manages to tackle it without attacking one side or the other. She also recognises the unique nature of ministry, rather than just blaming ministers for being petty or unprofessional. And best of all she gives great concrete advice, too! Thanks Simone!

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/mirrors-1st-november-2013 (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

One of the most bizarre discoveries for people is that Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City has paid non-Christian musicians to play music in their church services.

Most Australians I know really balk at this. It feels unspiritual. Mercenary. Selling out on the community of God’s people for the sake of quality. No only to have non-Christians… but to PAY them!?

I remember somewhere reading Tim Keller make a peculiar theological argument for how this was fulfilling in part the Old Testament prophecies about the Gentiles singing praises to the Lord. I read those prophecies as being fulfilled when the Gentiles come to put their hope the Lord.

BUT

I think there is a much more simple, historical justification: accompanying music is not that big a deal. Our conviction that the musicians must be Christian, it seems to me, is in part the fruit of the modern ‘worship’ movement.

It is not a big deal for an old traditional church to pay an organist to come in and play the organ for their services. Because it’s just a backing instrument. The congregational singing is the big thing. We might pay a non-Christian gardener or a non-Christian accountant. Why not a non-Christian backing musician?

It is in part that we have over-spiritualised and over-centralised the role of band in our church services that we find it strange to have non-Christians in the band and to pay them to do it.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/its-ok-to-pay-non-christians-to-play-music-in-church-services (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

Here Spurgeon is speaking really of the role of solo pastor of a congregation. I don’t agree with his emphasis on ‘calling’ but this section from ‘Lectures to My Students on Preaching’ is great:

We must, however, do much more than put it to our own conscience and judgment, for we are poor judges. A certain class of brethren have a great facility for discovering that they have been very wonderfully and divinely helped in their declamations; I should envy them their glorious liberty and self-complacency if there were any ground for it; for alas! I very frequently have to bemoan and mourn over my non-success and shortcomings as a speaker. There is not much dependence to be placed upon our own opinion, but much may be learned from judicious, spiritual-minded persons. It is by no means a law which ought to bind all persons, but still it is a good old custom in many of our country churches for the young man who aspires to the ministry to preach before the church. It can hardly ever be a very pleasant ordeal for the youthful aspirant, and, in many cases, it will scarcely be a very edifying exercise for the people; but still it may prove a most salutary piece of discipline, and save the public exposure of rampant ignorance….

Considerable weight is to be given to the judgment of men and women who live near to God, and in most instances their verdict will not be a mistaken one. Yet this appeal is not final nor infallible, and is only to be estimated in proportion to the intelligence and piety of those consulted. I remember well how earnestly I was dissuaded from preaching by as godly a Christian matron as ever breathed; the value of her opinion I endeavoured to estimate with candour and patience-but it was outweighed by the judgment of persons of wider experience. Young men in doubt will do well to take with them their wisest friends when next they go out to the country chapel or village meeting-room and essay to deliver the Word. I have noted-and our venerable friend, Mr. Rogers, has observed the same—that you, gentlemen, students, as a body, in your judgment of one another, are seldom if ever wrong. There has hardly ever been an instance, take the whole house through, where the general opinion of the entire college concerning a brother has been erroneous. Men are not quite so unable to form an opinion of each other as they are sometimes supposed to be. Meeting as you do in class, in prayer-meeting, in conversation, and in various religious engagements, you gauge each other; and a wise man will be slow to set aside the verdict of the house.

I should not complete this point if I did not add, that mere ability to edify, and aptness to teach is not enough, there must be other talents to complete the pastoral character. Sound judgment and solid experience must instruct you; gentle manners and loving affections must sway you; firmness and courage must be manifest; and tenderness and sympathy must not be lacking. Gifts administrative in ruling well will be as requisite as gifts instructive in teaching well. You must be fitted to lead, prepared to endure, and able to persevere. In grace, you should be head and shoulders above the rest of the people, able to be their father and counsellor. Read carefully the qualifications of a bishop, given in 1 Tim. iii. 2-7, and in Titus i. 6-9. If such gifts and graces be not in you and abound, it may be possible for you to succeed as an evangelist, but as a pastor you will be of no account.

3. In order further to prove a man’s call, after a little exercise of his gifts, such as I have already spoken of, he must see a measure of conversion-work going on under his efforts, or he may conclude that he has made a mistake, and, therefore, may go back by the best way he can. It is not to be expected that upon the first or even twentieth effort in public we shall be apprized of success; and a man may even give himself a life trial of preaching if he feels called to do so, but it seems to me, that as a man to be set apart to the ministry, his commission is without seals until souls are won by his instrumentality to the knowledge of Jesus. As a worker, he is to work on whether he succeeds or no, but as a minister he cannot be sure of his vocation till results are apparent. How my heart leaped for joy when I heard tidings of my first convert! I could never be satisfied with a full congregation, and the kind expressions of friends; I longed to hear that hearts had been broken, that tears had been seen streaming from the eyes of penitents.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/spurgeon-on-suitability-for-full-time-ministry (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

Great audio from a recent event in South Australia, where Clayton Fopp shares how they planted Trinity Mount Barker out of Trinity Hills.

Also from this event is a panel where three church planters give 3 core principles for church planting.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/how-to-plant-a-church-from-a-mother-church (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

You don’t have to use illustrations at all. You don’t need a catchy illustration at the opening. You don’t need to illustrate after you state and locate and explicate. You don’t need an Illustration File.

If you want to save time on sermon preparation, cut out all the time thinking about, researching and honing your pretty illustrations.

Much of the work illustrations can be done by good delivery, vibrant exegesis and concrete application.

And after you’ve gotten over the stagefright of public speaking, a trickle of illustrations will probably come to you on the spot, without careful planning and tweaking.

This is to some extent dependent on a mix of skill, personality and taste. So not everyone will be able to or want to take this advice on board, and that’s fine too.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/sermon-illustrations-part-2-illustrations-are-unnecessary (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

My older brother Dave is the pastor of a church plant in a suburb south of Hobart. They do the ‘gospel community’ model in their small groups while running a larger Sunday gathering, together with ministries that run across the whole church.

In this recent sermon in their series on Proverbs, he speaks about friendship. There is lots of good stuff in here, including a challenge to men to invest in friendship.

He also talks about how Christians think that somehow we are meant to be equally friends with everybody and the difficulties that causes. EITHER we try to be equally friends with everybody and feel guilt and exhausted. OR we decide ‘If I can’t be friends with everybody I won’t be friends with anybody’ and retreat into a loving and kind acquaintanceship with everyone.

He also draws out a great definition of true friendship of Proverbs:

A real Proverbs friend tells you the truth in love, counsels you to do good and sharpens you. In other words, a real friend helps you grow. Real friends make you better.

How different is that to what many people might call ‘friends’ or ‘mates’!

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/stuff-i-learned-from-podcasts-3-dave-lynch-on-friendship (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

There’s lots of juicy stuff in these addresses by Ray Galea from Multicultural Bible Ministry:

1. Reaching the Western suburbs Part 1


2. Reaching the Western suburbs Part 2

The Geneva Push’s annual ‘Multiply’ church planting conference will be hosted by MBM this year, so you can hear more from Ray Galea and see a little bit of his ministry up close.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/church-planting-among-working-class-and-migrant-communities (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

Illustrating your main point is only one of the purposes of sermon ‘illustrations’:

They also give your listeners a ‘rest’ from the sermon. An opportunity to refresh and recharge their attention span.

They give additional emotional/aesthetic impact to the sermon. Tapping into the church’s emotions can be helpful no matter which emotion is aroused. How often has a preacher with a great sense of humour moved from jokes to challenging application in a short space?

To reveal something about the preacher or the church or Christians in general. It is a good getting to know you exercise.

To make an additional point: historical, ethical, theological, apologetic, cultural.

Has anyone looked into this much? Or used it? What’s the reality like? What are the pros and cons? Legalities and ethics? Hints and tips?

I have gotten to know an entrepreneur over the last year who has often pitched to me the value of offshore outsourced admin agencies such as Zirtual.

And the other day, I laughed at the comment thread in this post. You see Mark Driscoll claims on Twitter to spend 1-2 hours on sermon preparation. But as someone in the comment thread clarifies:

[Driscoll] has used Docent communications for years, which prepare sermon briefs. He does have a nearly photographic memory, but I know for a fact that he spends a lot of time reading and preparing for messages. He not only utilizes the research from Docent but he also uses much of what he’s reading that week. If he’s saying he sits down and takes 2 hours to write an outline, etc. maybe that’s what he means. But it’s not true that he only takes 2 hours to prepare for the sermon, because he not only has the help of Docent but he does take time each week to read and pray which is a part of the sermon preparation process.

What do you think about outsourcing sermon research? Surely there is plenty of humdrum in sermon research preparation, that is not directly engaging with the text, or even theologians, but rather thumbing through dictionaries or Bible Software tabs…

Maybe we can all outsource our ministry work to someone in Indian who outsources all their work to someone in Afghanistan?

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I found myself in the tea hall of a church building. So I browsed through the bookshelf of old, so-dated-they’re-almost-cool-again 1960s and 1970s book covers. The Cross and the Switchblade. How To Be Born Again. No Compromise. That kind of thing.

I skim-read a little book, I think by Peter Wagner, on church growth. He made observation that roughly 10% of any church has the gift of evangelism. Rather than trying to mobilise the entire church in evangelism, work hard at mobilising the full 10%.

Insofar as this is true, it demonstrates one of the problems with trying to make small groups (or cell groups or life groups or gospel communities) missional/evangelistic.

In a group of 8-12 you will be lucky to have ONE person with the gift of evangelism. And even if you do, you have to be confident that their particular gift suits the peculiar context and community of that small group.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/about-10-of-your-church-have-the-gift-of-evangelist (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

I blogged about this question a few months ago here.

Here’s a bit of an update. Since we shut down the lunchtime campus meetings halfway through Semester 2, there wasn’t heaps of time left to deal with for 2013. But we made plans with an eye to the future, as well.

Our main decisions was to re-deploy staff hours into visiting our small groups and provide encouraging, contact and coaching to our small group leaders. This is definitely an area that would benefit from more growth and encouragement.

In 2014 we will continue to run with this coaching program for our small groups, and we will also work really had at developing a couple of new structures we launched this year:

1. Faculty-level clusters of small groups. These groups organised social events twice a semester this year. But in 2014 we would like these clusters to organise a range of social events, training events and evangelistic events across the year.


2. ‘Christianity 1A’ - a new evangelistic course that works through the Sermon On The Mount. This year we had 27 students attend, including 8 non-Christians. God-willing we will be able to run this course at least once each semester in 2014, with similar or greater numbers.

And lastly, I would like us to develop some strategies to connect with a new clump of Christian students at the start of Semester 2, so that we are not relying simply upon a new clump of start-of-year contacts.

Preaching platforms in 2014


In 2014 our public preaching platforms will be:

• Monthly at our Citywide Gatherings


• Monthly at our student leadership breakfasts


• 8 sermons at our Mid Year Conference


• 3 sermons at our Pre-O-Week ‘Pre-Season Conference


• 2 sermons at each of our mid-semester ‘Day Conference


• 1 sermon at each of our student leaders vision days (start and end of the year)


• Occasional sermons at various faculty-level events

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Just started reading ‘The Meaning of Marriage’ by Tim Keller:

I immediately realized, however, that I didn’t want to be served. I didn’t want to be in a position where I had to ask for something and receive it as a gift. Kathy was deeply disappointed and insulted that I had robbed her of the opportunity to do so. We drove home in angry silence as I tried to figure out what had happened.

Finally I began to see. I wanted to serve, yes, because that made me feel in control. Then I would always have the high moral ground. But that kind of ‘service’ isn’t service at all, only manipulation. But by not giving Kathy an opportunity to serve me, I had failed to serve her. and the reason underneath it all was my pride.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/ouch-keller-on-why-i-might-not-want-to-be-served-in-marriage (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

In this sermon on Jacob wrestling with God, Al Bain (St John’s Presbyterian Church, Hobart) draws out parallels between Jacob’s birth and Jacob wrestling with God: Both involve some kind of struggle, both involve a new name, both involve a promise…

It is as if in Genesis 32 we are witnessing the Jacob’s new birth!

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1. Communicate Jesus lists some ways that you can make it easy for people to take the first step in responding to a call to action. Once you are aware of this, you notice how badly churches often do at giving easy, accessible, basic ‘next steps’ for visitors coming to church. No wonder many of us struggle with follow up and retaining people in our fellowships: it is so hard to know what to DO next to become more involved!


2. An intriguing post from Phillip Jensen on the difference between a FUNERAL, which focuses on mourning someone’s death and includes a sermon and a THANKSGIVING SERVICE, which focuses on giving thanks for someone’s life and includes a eulogy. He says we need to keep a place for the funeral.


3. Chuck Lawless lists 10 characteristics of leaders who last:
   
   
   
   • They don’t let discouragement set in
   
   
   • They begin with a determination to finish well
   
   
   • They share the workload
   
   
   • They have a vision bigger than they are
   
   
   • They take care of themselves physically and spiritually
   
   
   • They invest in their family
   
   
   • They treat people well
   
   
   • They have genuine friends
   
   
   • The learn to laugh
   
   
   
   

   Great advice in here! I love the little numbered posts on Thom Rainer’s blog. They are like blog junk food, in one way, but they always have good stuff in there. So healthy junk food - like a gourmet burger bar.

   
   


4. 11 Things Simone loves about being a minister’s wife. I love the honesty in this list: it’s not all pious stuff, in fact some of it is cheekily about power and perks!


5. 
   

   When you make one decision in your ministry’s tactics or strategy, you are gaining certain benefits, but also taking on limitations. One of the most frustrating things in leadership is when people’s criticisms are really just the urging to adopt a different (perhaps equally legitimate) set of tactics and strategies that happen to be the ones you haven’t adopted. In this situation, the person rarely owns up to the corresponding weaknesses of their suggestion, and the loss of the strengths of the current option. Steve Kruyger explores this issue:

   
   

   
   

   Once a decision have been made about which approach will be adopted, it’s essential to also make a decision from that point on, not to complain that the benefit of the other scenario isn’t being achieved.

   
   

   
   

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://genevapush.com/blogs/xian_reflections/mirrors-27th-september-2013 (NB: to comment go to thegenevapush.com/xian_reflections)

I put a bunch of sermons on my phone before driving up to Devnport and back the other week. Each sermon taught me some things I hadn’t known/seen before, so I thought I’d do a little series:

In this sermon on the beatitudes, Toby Neal (Vine Church, Sydney), Toby takes a fresh angle on the nature of miracles and the created order.

Miracles are not the suspension of the natural order, they are actually re-establishment of the natural order: Jesus returning things to how they ought to be.

Nifty, huh?

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Great nuggets of wisdom in this recent Geneva webinar:

Home truths for church planting couples from Geneva Push on Vimeo.

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I really like this section of the AFES staff Code of Conduct. I think it captures the right concerns in terms of integrity in evangelistic relationships:

We, as AFES staff, will….

Seek to honour the Lord through an ethical and open approach in our attempts to persuade others to believe the good news about Jesus Christ:

• We disavow any approaches which depersonalise people; or that seeks their conversion through manipulative, coercive, or overly emotional means which bypass a person’s critical faculties, or that mask the true nature and demands of Christian conversion.


• We believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and affirm the necessity of the proclamation of Christ every person. As evangelists, we will pursue this goal with openness, revealing our identity and purpose, theological positions, and sources of information. We will engage people of other religious persuasions in true dialogue, listening carefully and responding honestly and graciously.


• We will especially have care in our evangelistic relationships with international students. We will be diligent in expressing the welcome of the Lord Jesus to people of all ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, and we disavow any racism. We also understand that some will come from cultural backgrounds where there is high respect for older people and authority figures, and also where there is a sense of obligation to those who provide some service or friendship. For these reasons, international students must be treated carefully to give full expression to the freedom of their response to the Gospel without any (even unintended) coercion.

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All ministry is about making disciples and helping people mature in Christ. Even a cutting edge evangelistic ministry, if successful, ought to work hard at following up and maturing its new converts.

And yet as a focus, I believe campus ministry (or uni ministry or ‘college’ ministry in the US) should have a particular focus on evangelism and leadership development.

Here’s a few ways that focus works out on the leadership development front:

The whole flow of the campus ministry is basically a funnel helping you narrow down the people to really work with to disciple, equip, coach and mentor as Christian leaders. You can’t really ask a group of 17 year old Christians ‘Do you want to be a Christian leader?’ They don’t know how to make cheese on toast, and may not even be Christians at all! So you narrow it down slowly:

1. Those who commit to your campus group narrows the pool somewhat


2. Those who further commit to taking on some formal role of leadership or team involvement narrows it down still further

General Leadership Training

Out of this smaller group you focus your attentions in discipleship, training and coaching. What are the general skills and convictions and character you would like to impart to them, by God’s Spirit, so that they are set up well to serve Christ into the future?

Beware of over-training. Training your general leaders in proportion to them putting things into practise. Train them in the basics, don’t just make them passive recipients of training courses. Training them in the context of actual ministry work that is building the ministry on campus, not in theoretical contexts.

(While being in favour of some amount of cold-contact evangelism, I do worry that sometimes the whole process of cold contact evangelism can become quite quite and toxic in campus ministry. We don’t REALLY do it to see people converted, but simply to provide a context to radicalise young Christians and help them articulate and defend the gospel. The problem with this MIGHT be that it creates a perverse vision of what ‘radical’ Christianity looks like, and equips people in an abstract skill: gospel dialogue with strangers).

Full Time Ministry Training

Out of this general group, there will then be those who are uniquely suited to leadership of churches, ministries, missions, church plants.

You choose those who are gifted, godly. But also those with whom you click and those who are actually keen to give more to the mission on campus.

These are the ones you give your most intensive mentoring, training and coaching.

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I see these in my own life, and as a parent, I see them in (some) of my kids:

1. Resenting and resisting your human frailty: sickness or tiredness. Fighting against them and becoming depressed when they fail you.


2. Inability to express personal preferences (what others might called ‘needs’) when it comes to matters of human frailty.


3. Taking yourself too seriously.


4. Dwelling on failure and criticism. Focusing on failures in something that is generally successful.


5. If something throws you off, your whole day feels ruined. If a day gets written off, the whole week feels ruined.


6. Always going fast, always doing several things at once, always ‘on’ socially, always getting things done now so they don’t need to be done later.


7. Inability to see seasonal ebbs and flows in life: living in a constant now.


8. Frustration, anger, or lack of motivation or joy with things you are not really good at.


9. Frustration, anger, or lack of motivation or joy with things you don’t have clear instructions for.


10. Impatience, or demonising, or criticising those who don’t function in the same way or at the same pace.


11. Reluctance to submit to the leader or plan of someone who seems less competent than you.


12. Paralysis and sulking when you can’t see how to do something well.


13. Reluctance to ask for help, ask for mercy or ask for advice.


14. Expect more of yourself than you would ever expect of others.


15. Shouldering the responsibility for everything.

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A few commenters asked me to give some advice on how to avoid the emotional ‘sins’ described in this post.

Easier to point out a problem than provide a solution, isn’t it?

Here are a couple of thoughts - but please give your own suggestions:

1. Set an example in your own life - these aren’t just ‘sins’ that kids commit, are they?!


2. Call them out when you see them. Develop some of those infuriating parental slogans that drill into their heads what is wrong with these ways of responding.


3. Figure out the opposites and celebrate them when you see them: “Well done for telling us clearly how that you are feeling crabby!”


4. Deliberately provide a running commentary on your own emotional life, and their emotional life, to help them become more emotionally intelligent: “Can I explain to you what might be going on here?”


5. Do character studies of TV shows and movies and books - both Franklin and Arthur are character-rich programs that seem deliberately designed to assist with this.


6. Explore their hurtful behaviour of friends/family/teachers through this grid, where relevant. An upside to this is that it helps kids show sympathy to those who have unfairly hurt them.


7. Not in the heat of the moment, but in preventative contexts, talk to them about these matters and unpack what is wrong about them.


8. Explore the personal, practical, ethical and spiritual reasons why these are so bad.


9. Talk often about God’s sovereignty over all things and build a spirituality that embraces all the ‘givens’ of life: our context, limitations, sufferings, feelings, as gifts/tests from God that can be joyfully received from his hand.


10. Model prayer when in the midst of the kind of emotional turmoil that sometimes leads to these ‘sins’.

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We hear horror stories about evangelical heroes neglecting their families for the sake of their zealous ministry.

I was recently read book notices in an old Reformed Theological Review (Vol 69, April 2010, No. 1) and there was this example, from a biography of C. Stacey Wood (C. Stacey Woods and the Evangelical Rediscovery of the University by A. D. MacLeod - I’m very keen to read this actually):

On a more sombre note, Stacey’s life story, first, reminds us never to put ministry ahead of family, and to enjoy regular rest days and holidays. His inability in this area had long term costs to his family, aside from his own health. The punishing ministry schedule he set himself meant he had long absences from home, just like his father has, and this at a crucial stage in his boys’ development. When he was at home he was often distracted and anxious.

But then on the very next page was this lovely comment in a review of Assist Me To Proclaim: The Life and Hymns of Charles Wesley by John R. Tyson:

It is delightful to read of his happy marriage to Sally and his diligent role as a father. Yet this produced strife within Methodism because of the itinerant lifestyle that was expected of him ad which he increasingly felt unwilling and unable to maintain.

I was also intrigued by this little comment:

He must have written one poem or hymn almost every day of his adult life. There are oddly amusing poems on unusual subjects, for example on his pets, as well as heartfelt ones about his wife and children. There are also heartbreaking poems from times when he faced the deaths of some of his children.

If anyone can find and share some of Wesley’s pet poems I would LOVE to read them :-)

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I think a philosophy of ministry is a very powerful tool in a ministry. It serves the leaders by helping them make decisions and keep focus. It serves members and potential members by understanding what this ministry is and where it’s going.

A good philosophy of ministry has not only the top-down elements of mission and strategy, but also the bottom-up element of values and culture.

A good philosophy of ministry is a healthy mix of actual values (what we acutally are), aspirational values (what we hope to be) and core values (what we will do or die). So it is a mix of description, ideal and ethics.

And a good philosophy of ministry explains how you are unique in vibe and emphasis.

Here’s the philosophy of ministry we use for the University Fellowship of Christians:

Mission

Mission to the univeristy, missionaries to the world:

1. Empower students to thoughtful, creative, genuine and evangelistic mission to the University of Tasmania.

2. Identify and cultivate Christian leaders, especially missionaries, church planters and pastors.

Vision

1. We will be a large, diverse, long term and flexible ministry.

2. We will have a global network of missionaries, pastors, church planters and graduates committed to our ministry.

Strategy

We seek to fulfill our mission and vision with a dependence upon God’s power, and according to the methods he gives us:

1. Clear, persuasive Christ-centred proclamation of the Scriptures.

2. Prayer according to the promises of God.

3. The godly individual and community life of Christians as example, emobdiment and commendation of our message.

4. Loving willingness to serve, sacrifice and change for the good of others.

Values

1. We are not consumers, we are whole heartedly committed to the mission of the University Fellowship of Christians.

2. We are not a church, we are all members of local churches.

3. We are not activists, we rest in the grace of God and devote ourselves to prayer and meditating on Scripture.

4. We are not a ghetto, we are active members of the social life of UTAS.

5. We are not a parasite, we are diligent in our studies and involvement in the University community.

6. We are not a youth group, we expect mature and loving adult behaviour and responsibility.

The AFES philosophy of ministry is also worth checking out:

• Mission


• Values


• 
  
  
  
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