Wanted to find out more about how they actually do things at EV Church on the Central Coast of NSW? Want to think more about the '5 Ms' model of structuring church? Want to have a time to brainstorm these issues with a bunch of other pastors?

EV is hosting an event called 'Team Pastoring' on Friday 22nd to Saturday 23rd May that might be just the thing for you!

The program includes:

• Andrew Heard & the EV Team: The vision for multiplying disciples. How to structure for growth – strategy & implementation.  
• Dan Godden – Salt Church, Wollongong: Launching a new church with purposes in place – making it work from the beginning & a small church context.
• Greg Lee – Hunter Bible Church, Newcastle: Making the Change – transitioning your church to the team pastoring structure.
• Andrew Heard: Pushing through growth barriers – Up to 500 & beyond.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://ift.tt/1GFUvy0 (NB: to comment go to http://ift.tt/1joromF)

As a part of our 'Universe Next Door' series, just this week I spoke twice on the topic of atheism:

1. Is Religion Good?


2. Is Religion True? - includes Q&A

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://ift.tt/1Ip85pK (NB: to comment go to http://ift.tt/1joromF)

Thanks to Laura Roberts, from Louisville, KY, for giving me permission to repost her Facebook Statue Update as a guest blog post:

You know, it's funny: those who study church history are often pretty philosophical about how long it took the church to settle disputes about this or that -- we say things like "only a generation" or "within the lifetime of" and things like that, which indicate 40, 50, 60 years. But so many of us are incredibly impatient about the disputes of the modern church, and so much more pessimistic, as though the disagreements we've had in the last 60 or so years spell disaster and doom.

Friends, let's try to remember: the earliest Christians were debating whether or not Jesus was God, surely a more fundamental issue than what some of our quarrels land on today, and they made it through, because GOD IS FAITHFUL and the preservation of his church is HIS JOB. If the folks in those first-century churches were kept, it was by God's power. He holds his own, and keeps them even when they are confused or in doubt -- praise God! We can contend for the gospel without being contentious, trusting that God will preserve his own people in the truth, and approaching all disagreements with a gospel philosophy, believing that God has saved and kept us in spite of our own blind spots.

A God who can save and keep both Philemon AND Onesimus, both Peter AND Paul, both Elizabeth AND the woman at the well, is a God who is able to save and keep the law-breaker and the law-truster, the conservative and the liberal, the traditionalist and the progressive -- perhaps even by making them more like one another, drawing them towards each other in life-giving love, crafting one new man out of the old, dead, divided one.

via Blog - Christian Reflections http://ift.tt/1JbTUBY (NB: to comment go to http://ift.tt/1joromF)