Christian Reflections: Do you listen to any sermon podcasts? If so, who are you listening to at the moment?
Al: I probably listen to Tim Keller more than I listen to anyone else, especially given that I plan to be back speaking to CBD office workers next year. I'm trying to sharpen up on apologetics etc by listening to the master.

CR: What does Geneva mean?
Al: Geneva is named after the city where Calvin did most of his ministry... he raised up hundreds of missionaries and church planters... to other cities and countries. "Geneva" is to be... a network of networks, to help recruit, assess, train, and resource church planters, we're keen to do this in cooperation with other like minded people around the nation. we can do more working together than in competition.

CR: What will its relationship be to the Sydney Diocese? Is it really just an Anglican thing?
Al: No it's not just an Anglican thing, we've got a meeting of about 20 guys from around the country at the end of September... So far FIEC have said they want to be involved, we've got Presbyterians, Baptists, CRCs and we're keen to work with other Reformed Evangelical people. Sydney Diocese will be one of the players, but it's wider than just the Anglicans.

CR: Did you actually have a falling out with Steve Chong and Guy Mason? Why are you going separate ways?
Al: No not a falling out... Guy and Steve, Andrew Heard and Mikey Lynch and I are still mates. In fact I'm having lunch with Steve on Wednesday, and I had a great time at RICE last week. We just found that in hammering out the details... we had different philosophies of ministry about how we'd go about things: not different theology, but different ways of building a network.

I still pray for Guy and Steve, and I'm sure God will bless their ministries, they're great young blokes, and there's plenty of sinners to go around in Australia. What I mean is we're reaching such a tiny proportion of the population there's plenty of room for us all to get on with gospel work, and not be critical of one another.

CR: Aren't you the Bishop of Wollongong? Have you had any experience in church planting yourself?
Al: I'll be the Bishop of Wollongong until the end of the year... Then I'll be moving... back to Sydney to take a position with EM, and with responsiblity to get church planting happening in the Sydney region. This will be one hat I'm wearing, the Geneva network will be the other hat.

Me and church planting? ... I've started a night church in Mt Druitt, been involved in setting up approx 7 church plants at St Matts during the 90s, been the pastor of a plant into UNSW, and been a... member of a church plant while I was at Youth Works. We've managed to get 4 or 5 startup plants happening in the Wollongong region... I've been doing itinerant evangelistic speaking all this time, and I'm keen to move back to more frontline evangelism... in partnership with City Bible Forum.... I don't think I'm an expert, but I'm keen to get back to the front line, and I have had a lot of experience in coaching and helping to resource young guys starting out.


CR: What are three new ministries or church plants in Australia that you think are worth watching?
There are lots of different models at work around the country:

• Holy Trinity Adelaide is... working out their own model of how to start new congregations. They are starting with larger teams of people and resourcing the plants strongly at the start.
• Wayne Pickford (with Church Army) has headed up a team that's done great work at Berkley in the Illawarra... They've been using adopt-a-block and really started from scratch.
Hans Kristenson's church Resolved is another new effort, Hans has planted a church in the Newtown area in Sydney,
Phil Campbell and the Presbyterians in Brisbane are using a different model again.
• and of course Guy Mason in Melbourne is doing a great job in a great venue, a pub at Docklands.
  

There are a few other guys in small communities who haven't yet got to start a public meeting, so I'm not sure if they want their work advertised yet.

Our aim is that Geneva will provide a forum where people will be able to swap ideas, talk with each other, both on line, and in person.

I just read an insightful critique of campus ministry in America. Some juicy quotes can be found on the University Fellowship of Christians 2010 site.

Here's just a sample:

Missions means aggressive progress
It is this area – progressing as a campus mission – in which even the largest college ministries seem to struggle.
On the opposite side of the concern about impatience with
new college ministries, there is a danger of established ministries becoming complacent. Just as newer ministries are often too harshly judged based on their small size, some better established ministries seem to assume too quickly that their relatively large size, longevity, or level of support automatically indicates health and quality. But many large or long‐lasting ministries still may lack the very things I noted in the last chapter, such as strategy, collaboration, successful 
preparation of students for post‐college life, and health. 

Over the next few days, I'll be conducting some interviews with characters around the country involved in church planting; asking the hard-hitting questions and getting to the bottom of things. Think of it as Today Tonight, except for Christians ;-)

First up, we have Will Henderson from Brisbane:

Christian Reflections: Do you listen to any sermon podcasts? If so, who are you listening to at the moment?
Will: Andrew Heard – CCEC, Matt Chandler – The Village Church, Gateway Church…

CR: What have you been doing, what are you about to do?
Will: Just arrived back in Brisbane to plant a new church in the city, Engage City Church.  Prior to that I spent a year working in U.S. learning all I could.  Before that I undertook a four year church revitalization which was blessed to rejuvenate the existing church and plant a daughter, International Church.

CR: What will your relationship be to A29? To RICE? To GENEVA?
Will: I was affiliated as a Church Planter with Acts 29 in 2008.  So much has happened since then in Australia! I would love to be in relationship with both RICE and GENEVA and serve in any way possible.

CR: You've been in ministry in Australia in the past, haven't you? What lessons have you learned reflecting on the past?
Will: Jesus.  It is all about Jesus and following Him in His mission to seek and save the lost.  The mission has been set and we need to be loving and firm as we lead and guide our people to follow Him and join in His work in our communities.

The big battle is to regularly take the time to step out of working in ministry and work on it by defining reality and making the necessary hard calls required to move ahead.

It is my job to gather, equip and resource the team.  The buck stops with me.

Church planting is not the goal.  Church planting is a by product of following Jesus and sharing Him with others.

CR: In general, churches grow much bigger and quicker in the US than in QLD. How do you think you'll find the adjustment?
Will: No worries mate, I've had a healthy dose of reality working as a leader in an Aussie ministry over the past ten years.

CR: What are three ministries or church plants in Australia that you think are worth watching?
Will: Easy - Acts 29 Australia, RICE and FIEC's Geneva initiative.  All of them are gospel centered, Biblically solid evangelical networks desiring to see Aussies reached for Jesus.

Dominic talks about the adjustments he might need to make to enable the church to grow and members to step up and take greater responsibility.

We screened this last night and it was the best yet.

Our free, community cinema has taken a lot longer than I thought to get some momentum going. We started off with 12 people and last night we had over 25 people there. Among those were four people from the South Hobart community, one guy we contacted through the soup give away and a bunch of other people's mate.

The film itself is a masterpiece, so beautiful and weird and sad.

Some key turning points for Block Cinema have been:

• Some of the Tuesday Crossroads crew putting in extra effort to make the SoHo Community Centre really atmospheric and preparing nice nibblies (for Akira we even had sushi, tempura prawns and pocky).
• The woman who coordinates the SoHo newsletter (sent to every home) found out about us and asked if she could advertise us in the newsletter. She said that members of the community had talked about wanting a community cinema in the past.
• The Tuesday Crossroads gradually figuring out the role of hospitality in the mission of the church.
  
• Inclusion in the What's On calendar the youth section (Attitude) of the Hobart newspaper.

There hasn't been much up in the circles I blog in discussing and assessing RICE's new en:trust church planting organisation. So I thought I'd weigh in with a couple of thoughts as someone who doesn't know the ins and outs. Please feel free to add your thoughts and to correct me if I'm wrong:

1. It's exciting and encouraging to see new things get started. We have been blessed by Steve Chong's ability to gather, inspire, mobilise and network. He has managed to Chong together a great package here.
2. It seems to be very focused on coaching from overseas celebrities and with the exception of Steve Timmis, they're all Americans (I think). I don't know if that is ideal, to have a coaching framework built around people who don't live and minister here in Australia.
3. Like everything with RICE, there is the potential danger for some people to get involved because of the razzamatazz rather than the gospel.
   
4. It seems fitting for some leading figures in Sydney church planting to be an ABC, rather than a white guy.
5. RICE will benefit from ongoing meaningful, vulnerable investment in relationships with Australians outside of their network (not saying that they aren't already - just that it's the risk of any movement to become self-contained).
   
6. They've gotten this up and running so quickly - props to the the RICE work ethic! It's a joy to see a group who are able to pull together an impressive program so quickly and get on with getting church planting actually happening. When exactly does Steve sleep - in the year of Jubilee?

Please share your thoughts, but understand that I am writing as a personal friend of Steve and RICE, so I am not inviting or condoning a tall poppy harvest.

Chris has posted some notes on a Peter Corney lecture, including these great sections:

Get a mentor (but be honest, you won't be totally 100% open and honest with them so don't promise it! He then sidetracked to make an interesting point about how all humans crave intimacy, with others and ultimately with God. But the road to intimacy is vulnerability, and all people are afraid of vulnerability and therefore aren't good at intimacy. I thought this was an exceedingly interesting observation that I'll think and blog more about no doubt.)

And

Watch your appetite (if you're eating too much, drinking too much, watching too much tv, ask yourself what your trying to escape from, and deal with it).

And

Make a list of things you will never do/you will always do (eg. I will never harbour resentments, I will always admit quickly when I'm wrong, I will always be honest, I will always remember I'm preaching for God, not the approval of man).

 

Peter Corney was a mighty ministry man @ St Hill's Anglican in Melbourne. He wrote the book on welcoming.

Amen.

Gosh this dude reminds me of George McFly.

(H/T Murray)

Listened to this while doing the dishes this morning. It's like an exegesis-application waltz: expound-apply-apply, expound-apply-apply.
There's a lot of good quality drops in the dark cellar of the EV website, go check it out.

We have the best preachers in the world, right here in Australia. Why does anyone need to download American preachers?

David Jones exclaimed at last weekend's Ministry Challenge Conference. David was just one of many Tasmanians who discovered Greg Lee.

Here are some Greg gems:

• Core groups for new church plants should be 80-100 people, rather than 20-40.
• Spiritual gifts are not about what you are good at or what you enjoy (who would choose the gifts of 'involuntary suffering'!), but rather 'What does the church need?
• Romans 12:1 is about giving your life for the ministry of the kingdom, but in the first place, it is about offering your life to God in godliness.
• Rather than only delegating what you can't do yourself, rather only do what you can't delegate.
• Church planters, need to be evangelistic, risk takers, those who love people, restless, confident, take responsibility. But many successful Australian church planters lack one or two of these.
• The different between staff and volunteers is that staff have time, gifts and training, whereas volunteers may only have one or two of these.

The sermons should be online at vision100.org soon. I'll let you know.

Mark Dever interviews Phillip Jensen - short version from Audio Advice on Vimeo.

• First five years are very positive.
• 5-10 years is very negative.
• 10+ years is positive in a more realistic way - although if the church is declining, they are still postive (for good or for bad!).
• Taking a study leave/sabbatical in the 5-10 year period can be very helpful to help you stick at it.
• The long-term growing ministries are often the result of ministers who continue to grow and develop their own thinking, ministry and life.
  

It does seem, from a distance, that this years' St Andrews' Cathedral training conference offered many correctives to Driscoll's visit in 2008. For example:

Phillip Jensen interviews John Woodhouse from Moore College on Vimeo.

Michael Kellahan offers a sober assessment of both last year and this years' material, avoiding anything falsely adversarial like the title of this blog post.

The big reason I welcome the input Michael reports from this year is pastoral. I grieve for the many young idealists who will storm out to plant churches, thinking that somehow because they have a Driscoll podcast that they'll plant a big church - and the self doubt and shattered dreams they may well face. I have great sympathy for the Aussies coming back from Acts 29 internships to face the great difficulties of planting churches in Australian soil, after the more fruitful American context.

It's good for us, pastorally, to be reminded of the way the mustard seed grows.

Korn guitarist admits Jesus is first.

Just got the latest SALT magazine in the mail. Gosh it looks good. While I'm at it, gosh the AFES website looks good too.

This edition is especially exciting because it's all about identity, with lots of articles ranging from theological themes - being, believing and belonging in the people of God - practical topics - Freaks and Cliques: Identity and accepatance and the grace of God - and heaps in between.

Shout out to the SALT team!

Cornerstone is the daughter church of Crossroads, planted in 2001 by David Jones and a team, including Dan Shepheard and Paul Chew.

They have had one of the worst websites in Christendom for the last three years, but things have changed.

Vision 100 IT has just flicked the switch on their new Drupal site, with plans to improve it's design and content even more.

Especially worth checking out is their enormous sermon backlog, including stacks of David Jones sermons.

I have changed the Christian Reflections blog template.

(Are you happy Dave?)

Jason just posted this flowchart.

Often asking for help is being lazy, isn't it? Whether it's troubleshooting a computer or figuring out what to do with some other problem in our lives or ministries, we like the expert (or pastor) because we can just ask them what to do, rather than troubleshooting.

This is bad because:

• We should treasure experts and only use them when we need to.
• We should treasure experts and therefore not distract them from focused, high level work, rather than constantly distracted with low-level work.
• Often the problem is just a freak problem and there is noone who knows an obvious answer. The expert doesn't know the answer, they are just gonna be quicker and decisive than you are. Quit wasting their time and learn to be fast and decisive yourself.
  
• We should seek to expand our own abilities and problem solving skills, and troubleshooting is one way to do this.
• 'Delegating upwards' to more skilled people is just ugly and ruins chain of command. Denzel Washington wouldn't approve.

In which he calls me 'the mini Don Carson'. Thanks mate.

We decided to do a soup giveaway in a central square in Hobart. Our mission was to be 'nice' to Hobart. We chose 3-5pm to grab the after-school crowd cause I have a theory that rebellious highschoolers will find a good 'uni' church more helpful than a church youth group.

We got everything designed nicely and printed and laminated. We even got lanyaryds.

Josh reports on the event, with photos and everything.

We gave away around 70 litres of soup and 200 rolls. We served spicy tomato and lentil, creamy potato and leek and curried zucchini and pumpkin. Along the way we had lots of chats and people were very happy to grab a flier to find out who we were. People were very appreciative of us taking the effort.

The team were hardworking, cheerful and uncomplaining. They really enjoyed the event and were encouraged. I think it has really helped reinforce that our church is more than just our Tuesday night meeting.

"To break real bread is to break the loveless hold of hell upon the world, and, by just that much, to set the secular free."
-The Supper of the Lamb, A Culinary Reflection, by Robert F Capon (p. 115)

(H/T Margaret)