The Art of Minsitry Training, the course that MTS runs for pastors wanting to get into the movement, has a paper called 'Training Mindshifts'. I like this paper because it captures the spirit of the MTS movement, resonantes with many of the best bits about the emerging church movement:

1. From running programs to building people
2. From an event strategy to a training strategy
3. From using people to growing people
4. From filling gaps to training new workers
5. From solving problems to helping people make progress
6. From ordained ministry to team leadership
7. From church polity to ministry partnership
8. From relying on training institutions to establishing local training
9. From immediate pressures to long-term expansion
10. From management to ministry
11. From church growth to gospel growth

Some brute facts of uni ministry? This is an opportunity for actual observations and facts, as well as to come clean about your own actual experiences of uni ministry.

1. I was converted, in part, by a uni ministry while in high school.
2. This uni ministry was used by God to save a decent number of people and fire up a whole bunch of Christians.
3. This uni ministry was at its best when it worked in close synergy with a local church.
4. I know that throughout history, Christian Unions have been used by God to raise up large numbers of preachers and missionaries.

Other facts you wanna share?

Just this week I was thinking that a book like this was needed. I don't know if this is the book I think is needed. I like the title a lot. I hope it is.

But even if it is good, emerging church people will probably say the authors haven't understood the emerging church properly. How can we be sure that they haven't understood it? Because they have said something negative about it.

Change takes years. Really thorough change involves the whole church culture evolving. Bear this in mind when you pass on constructive criticism to your pastor. Bear this in mind if you *are* a pastor and feel like you are achieving nothing.


A Crossroads example:

• 2005 - We didn't have any music at church;
• 2006 - We started having music at church and it was hectic, inconsistent and stressful;
• 2007 - We bought songbooks, organised a team of bandleaders and began troubleshooting;
• 2008 - The music is consistently pretty good.
  

The red thinking hat is emotions. What does uni ministry make me feel?

1. Bored. It is a predictable ministry for young, progressive evangelicals. Another training course. Another opportunity to point out the inconsistencies of secular humanism. Another
   
2. Thankful. God has converted, strengthened and motivated so many people; many people I love dearly and many people who have influenced me deeply.
   
3. Exhausted. The thought of ringing up 150 first year uni students to encourage them to come to the welcome BBQ. The thought of filling out 10-page-long tables of Bible verses at Mid-Year-Conference. The thought of attending the 10-day National Training Event in Canberra in December each year which includes a 5-day 'mission'
   
4. Relieved at doing ministry without the creche roster, music team or Session meeting.
5. Sad when it does not bear fruit.
6. Baffled when Christians don't get involved in their CU while at uni.
   

Come on, it's your turn. Share your feelings.

What are some things that really suck about AFES-style uni ministry?

1. You are spending a lot of time doubling up - training and pastoring people who are already being trained and pastored by local churches. If the local churches aren't doing their job, perhaps it'd be better to tell people to move churches, rather than picking up the slack in parachurch.
2. Uni ministries work best when they are supported by a church with a strong uni-ministry. So why not just have the local church?
3. You are pretending to be a student union while in practice being run by an external minister. It is dishonest.
   
4. It is tacitly supporting the Student Union concept, which may get in the way of sharing the gospel with Young Liberals.
5. Universities are no longer hubs of social and cultural activity, so it is less of a legitimate mission field.
6. More time ends up be spent in training than in evangelism. An evangelistically-driven uni ministry may look very different to current AFES-style ministries.

Anyone else got thoughts? I plan to follow this up with a post about the Why Uni Ministry is Totally Bodacious, but for now let's leave our Black Thinking Hat on. I reckon there are enough people who read this blog to come up with another 6 reasons at least. Come on, I dare ya!

My introductions are often preparatory comments, apologetic reflections, related topics that-we-don't-have-time-to-explore-today, broader systematic categories within which the exposition sit and so on. I trust that I can do this in a signficantly interesting way that you'll want to hear the rest of my sermon.

My friend Des Smith tends to give big illustrations in his introductions. But they are not illustrations of the 'big idea' of the sermon, but rather the big idea that was going through Des' mind as he was writing the sermon.

Mark Driscoll tends not to have introductions. He just starts talking in that husky phone voice of his and we're all ears.

Phillip Jensen says that it's good to find something intriguing in the text of Scripture itself. That way, from the very beginning you are grabbing people's interest with the Bible.

At our Art of Ministry Training course last week, Col Marshall articulated a part of his ministry philosophy: Do a deep work in a few.

I like this. Rather than imposing some grand program on the whole church, devote time and love and prayer to encouraging and helping a few people in a profound way. Over time, this will have an enormous influence on the growth of the kingdom of God.

The latest version of 'The Art of Ministry Training', the 'how to train an MTS apprentice' course has recently been released. Col Marshall, former director of MTS has spent a long time working on this stuff and the new edition is a vast improvement.

It is easy to summarise a movement one particular way, and not make allowances for the fact that over time, the movement learns and adapts. It develops nuances and subtleties that answer earlier criticisms. And so with MTS, it is easy to criticise it for what it *was* ten years ago, or how it is *implemented* by one pastor in one place. The movement as a whole, however has moved on.

Early MTS was pretty gung-ho in dismissing any concept of a call to ministry. The gospel itself is the call to ministry, any other 'call' is unbiblical mysticism. The only questions we should be asking about paid minsitry are more practical ones such as giftedness and godliness.

In the latest version of AMT, there is a more nuanced approach, by equating 'call' language with
'sending', 'appointing' and 'stewardship' categories:

Given God's call upon all his children, it is clear that God also 'calls' particular servants through whom he revelas his will and purposes to his people. God calls or sends or appoints [emphasis mine] particular ministers to proclaim his Word and lead his flock. The distinctive of this ministry to which some are called and appointed is in stewardship - the degree of responsibility...
The Bible does not speak in terms of an inner call to ministry. The call comes from God through his ministers and by the recognition of the congregation. However there are some passages which touch on the personal response. The desire for the ministry of oversight is commended because it is a good work....
Calvin taught of a secret or inner call but this does not seem to be a mystical experience but rather a burden for the ministry deriving from godly motives as reflected in 1 Peter 5:1-4... and then the Institutes are quoted.

'Vision 100' wants to promote a church-planting movement in Tasmania. You can't build a movement, you have to promote it, foster it, nurture it. For a long time Vision 100 has been many things: An office, an idea, a label placed over the top of existing church plants, a bunch of conferences.

But how do we really foster a movement? Here are some of my thoughts:

1. Begin with preaching and prayer: The starting of three prayer days each year, with short sermons at the beginning and end of the prayer has been a big step forward. They are the embodiment of the movement.
2. Define clearly who the partners of the movement are, and what partnership in the movement involves. Movements are so foggy. Some people assume they're in when they're not. Others are unsure if they're in. Some kind of formal 'movement partners' list helps solidify the movement's self-identity and its communication.
3. Begin with locals not guests. A movement needs to be indigenous, autocthonous, organic. Guest speakers won't be able to speak to the specific movement. We need to lift up those who have a prophetic voice within the movement and call on them to define the movement's values and to serve as figureheads for the movement.
   
4. Begin with those who are on board, before trying to win others on board. Again, the existing movement partners need to forge strong relationships before there even is a movement for others to join.
   
5. Provide many opportunities for mutual learning, encouragement and discussion. This seems to me to be the very heart of what a movement is about.
   
6. Raise funds by targeting specific projects, not by asking people to give to the 'movement'.
   
7. Select focal places. Just jumping from one church to the other, one venue to the other so as to 'include everybody' means that the movement doesn't develop a 'sense of place'. Find good central places to run events over a period of time.
   

... and Sunday Morning Fellowship Group is moving from a fixed venue to a house-church setup. We'll rotate through the homes of people who have big living rooms, one month each.

Not many of us are used to House Church. I wonder if we will find it hard to think evangelistically about a house church meeting. Most of us haven't even been in house churches. Will be, just by default, not even think about inviting people to attend house church? Will be, just by accident, do and think and talk in ways that reinforce that this is just a fellowship group for Christians?

How can we break out of this mindset? How can we get into a evangelistic house church culture?

I'm gonna shut down the core meeting for Tuesday Crossroads. We do better building momentum and ownership in our ordinary meeting and further reflection and prayer can be done informally.

When we meet monthly to review, plan and pray we just seem to be psyching each other out. Maybe we'll do it again some blue day...

I am having an email discussion with a pastor in NSW about how to implmement Getting Things Done for ministry. To make it all concrete I wrote down my current GTD system:

Collection Places
Home paper inbox, portable paper inbox, office paper inbox, email inbox, phone inbox (if I can't be bothered getting a pen out I write a TODO in my phone), SMS inbox, answering machine. I know some peopel keep their computer desktop really clean and empty so that it functions as an inbox for attachments (i've never done this).

Actions Lists
I have a filofax type binder diary about A5 size with a day-per-page calendar and a bunch of dividers. In this I put:
- Calendar
- @computer
- @phone
- @ errands
- @ office errands
- @ Sunday errands
- @creative writing
- @ home
- @ read (I also just have a reading pile)
- 'tickler pages' - I insert pages into my filofax along the lines of the 43 folders idea. I have one per week for the current month and then one per month after that.
- Hard Landscape checklist I have laminated and check at my weekly review and then move forward in the binder to the next week. This has my weekly, fortnightly, monthly, twomonthly etc regular tasks.
- agendas
- waiting for
- someday maybe
- project list (i also store a calendar of the next three month's preaching/workshop engagements)
- checklists: runway checklist (things to remember at the moment in church and family, household chores I said i'd do, things to work on in preaching, reminders about new procedures, when my holidays are), 20Kft checklist (i have both areas of responsiblity and church short-term goals), 30k checklist (church and personal 1-2 year goals), 40kft checklist (church and personal 3-5 year goals), 50kft checklist (church mission and values statements and personal lifelong goals), occasional checklists (I put an MCing checklist in when I am MCing at church, for example)

GMAIL
- Starred items in GMAIL: i have recently started starring things if they are part of a project or if they are a TODO.

Projects
I keep my project support material in manila folders
- Sermon series (John, 1John, 1Peter)
- GATAS Church Extension
- Archive Stuff at Home
- Put DJ Sermons on YouTube
- Session Reports
- Write Letter to Bible College Exiles
- Subscribe to Music Magazine
- Kid's Minsitry
- Ministry Lab
- ASA Mentorship Program
- Return Dumbrell Article to Bernie
- Give Advice to Rob S.
- MCing
- Linking and Learning

Areas of Responsibility Support Material
GTD doesn't distinguish this, but I find it helpful to have AoR support material as available as Project support material. Each of these tends to have a min-GTD system for them

- Mike Jolly (MTS apprentice)
- Dan Shepheard (staff)
- Steering Committee
- Tuesday Service
- Sunday a.m. Service
- Hobart MTS Apprentice Training Meetings
- MTS Tas Network Coordinator

Reference System
I keep this separate from my project material in five filing cabinets at home or office:
- A-Z general
- A-Z topical sermons
- A-Z sermon illustrations
- A-Z people
- Expository Sermons in canonical order
- Someday Maybe files (when a project is postponed, it is kept separate from regular reference material)
- A-Z general church files (at office)
- A-Z church someday maybe (at office - separate project files for each postponed project)
- A-Z people (in locked cabinet in office)
- A-Z confidential (in locked cabinet in office)

The other day me and Dan worked up some little slogans to help our roster overseers be assertive in the frustrating task of managing our church rosters. Here are a couple:

1. If you want to impress upon people that they are in charge of the venue keys, for locking up, passing the keys on and notifying the roster overseers about who they gave the keys to: "If you've got the key's, you've got the keys."
2. If you want to call someone to account for not turning up to church when rostered on say: "Not turning up to church causes stress on others and disrupts the church."
3. If you want to explain to others in the church why there is no tea and coffee tonight at church say: "The kitchen roster is not happening tonight because x didn't turn up for some reason."
   

One of my jobs is being the Executive Network Coordinator for MTS Tasmania. At our Training Day in February I laid out some goals or values I would like us to adopt. Here are two of the headings:

1. Own the Transition to a Movement

• It is tempting to say “We don't need MTS Nationally, we're too busy with our own thing here”.

• It is tempting to say “Oh I see some things differently to the standard MTS bandwagon”.

• I would like us to be one step ahead of the reactionaries who want to distance themselves from MTS. I would like us to say “I'm not some mindless groupie, I can see that there are flaws in this approach... and yet I am still committed to the overall direction. I only see things clearer because I'm standing on the shoulders of giants. What we have in common is far more than what we don't”.

• MTS is making an exciting transition from an organisation to a movement. It is a great opportunity for us to be a part of this national movement.

• Even if we don't get anything tangible out of it, we should want to share in the heritage of MTS.

• Even if we don't get anything tangible out of it, we should want to identify and be aligned and visibly stand beside the network of MTS.

• God-willing Tasmania will be even able to make a contribution to Australian evangelicalism through our affiliation with MTS.

2. Training Should Be Expensive

• If the training we offer is actually worthwhile we should feel it in our weekly schedule. We can't take the credit for being committed to ministry training if we don't also suffer loss because we are spending precious time in our busy weeks on training.

• We must regularly attend ministries of our apprentices for no other reason than to observe, encourage and critique our apprentice.

• We must regularly invite our apprentices to do things with us for no other reason than to observe us.

• The formal MTS guidelines recommend us to be formally training our apprentice for three hours a week, on top of meeting with them for one hour a week one to one.

• These guidelines also recommend that we spend ten hours together in ministry with our apprentices every week.

• This is a “love language” thing too. We must train our apprentices in such a way that they feel, know and understand they are being trained. This is where the cumbersome paperwork can fulfill an important function.

This one is passed on from a friend of mine:

We had some process consultants yammer at us a while back. One of the
ideas that I liked was defining what a "hand off" is.

Roughly, "A hand-off occurs whenever you separate responsibility (what
to do), knowledge (how to do it), action (doing it) and feedback
(learning from doing it)."

The idea is that you lose something (information, motivation etc) with
each hand-off. Not rocket science, but I like the definition -- it's a
handy checklist.

I think Mark Driscoll is great but I had the blessing of encountering an equally big, bold, offensive, funny, colourful, cultural engaged pastor before. One of the preachers who played a huge role in my conversion was the UK evangelist Pete Woodcock:




All the things that we love and hate (and love to hate) about Mark Driscoll I had already experienced in the ministry of Pete Woodcock.

So have you encountered Pete Woodcock yet? Let me know what you think. You can find his sermons from MTS Challenge 2006 Tasmania on the Crossroads website, or a bunch of sermons on the Co-Mission website.

1. Don't start talking until you have arrived at the lecturn, stopped and looked at the congregation.
   
2. Know what kind of Bible reading it is. If you are reading a declaratory, call-to-worship opening reading, then don't tell people the reference and wait for them to turn to it, and don't read it like it's a menu. Declare it in a Thus-saith-the-Lord way.
3. Don't tell me the page number. Even if you are using a pew Bible, lots of churches have at least two editions in their pews.
4. Wait for all the rustling of pages to die down. All of them. If you are not used to being up the front then this may feel like it takes forever and ever.
5. Announce the reading twice. I like it if the first announcement is the full title: "The Gospel According to John, Chapter 1 verses 1-8" or "Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians Chapter 3 Verses 22 to 28". I like the second announcement (after people have found their page) to be briefer: "John 1 verse 1" or "1Corinthinas 3 verse 22".
6. Pause briefly before leaving the lecturn.
7. If you are using the microphone, project your voice just as much as if you weren't using a microphone.
   

1. Alliteration and assonance.
2. Few rhetorical questions, especially in the appeal.
3. Quotes that are paraphrased at points rather than a paragraph read in full.
4. Nifty little asides into historical theology, systematic theology, the pastor's personal opinions or whatever else.
5. Biblical phraseology and citations that are not referenced.
6. Using a full square metre with your gestures - above, below, left, right, up, down.
7. Strong, clear linking sections between points.
8. Fresh and vivid ways of saying familiar things.
   
9. Indirect methods of application - delcaration, appeal, reasoning, exclamation, hints and tips, threat, description.
10. A sermon that goes longer than a commercial television sitcom.
    

I used to be good at this. But that was because I was a pretty extreme person living a pretty extreme lifestyle. Staying up till 3am chainsmoking and talking about predestination or quitting pot was pretty normal.

Now I don't know how to do it anymore, because I have no experience at ministering to converts from extreme lifestyles without being right alongside them.

Phonecalls is part of the answer. You can't expect them to keep a regular commitment. They may be in Perth next week and kicked out of their flat tomorrow and back on smack by Thursday and going to a pentecostal church for a month.

But a regular phonecall is achievable, it keeps you in touch and if it is regular and spiritually profound it can be enough. I intend to be more consistent with phonecalling any extreme contacts and converts we are given.