Here’s an example of what I mean about the importance of learning from other contexts. It’s taken from a case study of a church planting movement in India. The author is a cross-cultural missionary whose job it is to empower and partner with nationals. He writes,
In one case, I was training a group of 10 [...]
Monthly Archives: October 2008
Some things never change
29 October, 2008 – 5:14 AM
If you’re looking in the mirror—watch out!
27 October, 2008 – 6:53 PM
I caught up with old friend last week. I was telling him what I learnt about church planting movements on my trip to India. He’s a good guy. But his response bothered me. . .
“But that’s India. How do you know it will work in Australia?”
I hear responses just like this too often.
With one comment [...]
Why the substance of faith matters
25 October, 2008 – 1:42 PM
In an age of skepticism, cynicism, and false “freedoms,” Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957) was a passionate and occasionally scathing voice of reason. Like her friends C.S. Lewis, T.S. Eliot, and Charles Williams, Sayers was a brilliant Christian thinker, an Anglo-Catholic who took doctrine seriously and bristled at the growth of “fads, schisms, heresies, and anti-Christ” within [...]
Uniting Church prepares for the end
23 October, 2008 – 1:41 PM
Photo: Brendan Esposito
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Niall Reid, the head of the Uniting Church in NSW, has implored his church to start selling its underutilised churches, manses and halls and give the proceeds to the poor and disadvantaged.
Faced with dwindling congregations and conceding the church could all but disappear in 30 years, the [...]
Getting the job done
20 October, 2008 – 10:35 AM
foto
Everywhere you go in India they want to you teach and preach. But it’s amazing what you can learn if you assume you know nothing and listen to what God is already doing.
We caught up with some great folk in India. I’d better not tell you who and where. Conversion can be against the law [...]
Wesley’s covenant prayer
19 October, 2008 – 10:53 AM
Some Wesleyan friends introduced me to John Wesely’s Covenant Prayer.
I am no longer my own, but yours.
Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing, put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you or laid aside for you,
exalted for you or brought low for you;
let me be [...]
Overwhelmed by India
18 October, 2008 – 5:35 AM
My first trip to India just completed. When I think of the experience there’s one phrase that comes to mind, “A crush of people.”
In India, you’re not a serious player unless you’ve planted 2,000 churches. I keep meeting movement leaders who have done just that and more. One good friend has a goal of 100,000 [...]
How the world has changed
17 October, 2008 – 8:36 AM
I’m working my way through George Beasley-Murray’s excellent commentary on Revelation.
Writing in 1974 he reflects on the state of the church around the world,
“Christians accustomed to leave out of reckoning the eschatological perspective of the New Testament might well join the company of the alarmed, in view of the catastrophic decrease in the Church in [...]
Emerging church—DOA?
16 October, 2008 – 5:57 PM
Url Scaramanga announces the early demise of the “emerging church” in RIP Emerging Church: An overused and corrupted term now sleeps with the fishes. … HT: Alan Hirsch UPDATE: Ed Stetzer’s article on The Emerging Church, the Emergent Church, and the Faith Once Delivered to the Saints.
Back from India
15 October, 2008 – 1:37 PM
India is a crazy place. The roads are jammed with people, bikes, stray dogs, motor-bikes, cars, camels, water buffalo, rickshaws, buses and trucks–going in any and every direction. When your side of the road clogs up you just cross to the other side and start dodging the oncoming traffic.
No-one wears seat belts. Not even the [...]
