I took this on Gillard’s Beach, Mimosa Rocks National Park, a short stroll from our campsite.

Headed inland and home via the Snowy Mountains.

It’s summer in Australia. Michelle and I will hitch up the camper-trailer, and leave tonight for a beach somewhere on the south coast of New South Wales.

Perhaps we’ll find a spot at Bournda National Park.

I expect to be back, blogging around January 20.

Have a great summer break if you live in the southern hemisphere. Suffer in silence if you’re a northerner.

A highlight of my 2011 Christmas was watching the Queen’s Christmas message.

The Queen wrote the speech herself – one of the rare occasions where she does not turn to the government for advice.

She is still Australian’s head of state.

Before I highlight the actual speech, let’s see how the press in Australia and Britain reported it.

The Queen has used her annual Christmas Day broadcast to speak of courage and hope in adversity.

The BBC

In her traditional televised Christmas message, the Queen said she had been “inspired by the courage and hope” the royal family had witnessed in Britain and the Commonwealth in 2011.

The Telegraph

Queen Elizabeth II has highlighted the importance of family in her Christmas Day message.

The ABC

The Queen has celebrated the importance of the family in her Christmas Day message, describing the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge as her own personal reminder of the value of loved ones.

The Daily Mail

No mention at all of what the speech was building to. The last third of the message focused entirely on the gospel. Perhaps the press excluded this fact in the interest of social inclusion?

Here’s what she actually said . . .

Finding hope in adversity is one of the themes of Christmas. Jesus was born into a world full of fear. The angels came to frightened shepherds with hope in their voices: ‘Fear not’, they urged, ‘we bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

‘For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour who is Christ the Lord.’

Although we are capable of great acts of kindness, history teaches us that we sometimes need saving from ourselves – from our recklessness or our greed.

God sent into the world a unique person – neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a Saviour, with the power to forgive.

Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian faith. It can heal broken families, it can restore friendships and it can reconcile divided communities. It is in forgiveness that we feel the power of God’s love.

In the last verse of this beautiful carol, O Little Town Of Bethlehem, there’s a prayer:

O Holy Child of Bethlehem,

Descend to us we pray.

Cast out our sin

And enter in.

Be born in us today.

It is my prayer that on this Christmas day we might all find room in our lives for the message of the angels and for the love of God through Christ our Lord.

I wish you all a very happy Christmas.

The Queen is a better communicator of the gospel than most of the clerics interviewed over Christmas.

The Queen understands the importance, and the heart of the message of Christmas.

Long may she rule over us. God has saved our Queen.

Every day there is more bad economic news out of Europe. Is this the big crash we’ve all been fearing? No one knows, but it reminds me of an experience just after the last big crash and some implications for how we approach mission.

Just after the crash of 2008. I visited my dad concerned about his financial future. He’s over eighty and retired. I knew retirees who had lost 40% of their income and wealth due to the crash. I wasn’t sure how dad would handle the challenge.

We went for a walk and I asked how he was doing financially. “No problems,” he assured me.

Surprised I asked how that was possible? “Easy, I had all my money in cash investments.”

Before the crash no one had all their money in cash. That would be stupid in a booming economy. Except my dad. He’s seen a Great Depression and a World War. He is old enough to remember.

The thing about a long memory is perspective. Perspective is a gift that comes with time. Time reveals the consequences of our actions, both good and bad.

Today’s “breakthrough thinking” could become next year’s disaster. Yesterdays “outmoded thinking” might have been based on sound lasting principles.

That’s why it is essential that our thinking and practice of mission is founded on a solid understanding of the scriptures and the enabling power of the Holy Spirit. Contexts and the times change, and we need to change with them. Yet some things never change, and we must adhere to them, even if they threaten short term gains.

I’m old enough to remember the trends and fads that have swept through the Western church in its understanding of mission—evangelical missions, ecumenical mission, church growth, emerging church, missional communities, and whatever is next.

These trends will come and go. Some have been a disaster, others have helped, but they aren’t the main game. We’re just not smart enough, or creative enough to make this mission thing work.

Jesus Christ is risen and he is Lord. He has given his people two authorities to equip them to fulfil his mission—his dynamic word and the Holy Spirit. Everything else is bonus. You can bank on that.

We’d just finished a simple discovery bible study with a small group of people from Iran, China, Korea and Hong Kong. Heather told me she wanted to know more about following Jesus. My wife Michelle is going to catch up with her this week.

Woody Allen said, “90% of success in life is just showing up.”

That afternoon I really would have preferred to be at home with a book. I was tired and late that night I was flying out to London.

I turned up. I met a young lady who wanted to learn how to follow Jesus. God had already been working in her life. He included me in the story of her salvation.

I wonder how many others are out there who we have never met and who need us just to show up?

I was asked recently to speak at a church gathering of people recovering from drug and alcohol additions.       

The safe thing to do would have been to pull out one of my well worn messages. Instead I took a risk. I broke people into groups of three to five and told them to read the story of Jesus and the woman at the well (John 4:1-42). Then I asked them to close their bibles and see how much of the story they could remember.

Over the next thirty minutes I fed the groups a series of questions to help them engage with the scriptures and apply it to their lives. The room was full of energy. Finally we came back together and I had the groups tell me what the story meant and how they were going to obey what they had learned.

I could have preached a good message on this passage and told them what to do. We would have arrived at the same place, the same essential truths. But now they had a simple method of learning from the scriptures that could be easily passed on to others. Now they owned for themselves the insights they had gained. Now they had a group of people who could asked them the following week, “How did you go obeying what you learned?” “Who did you tell the story to?”

I enjoy preaching and teaching. I normally get encouraging responses to my messages. I have a calling to preach and to teach. But no movement can spread in breadth and depth by relying on guys like me with theological degrees. Jesus made sure his message was memorable and would be passed on by ordinary people to others. The word of God is a dynamic force that changes lives. It cannot be confined a Sunday morning sermon or a carefully controlled bible study. Somehow the word will break out and find its way to where people are in their homes, in the streets, in cafes and colleges, in workplaces.

At the heart of lifelong discipleship must be a simple method of discovery bible study that leads to obedience. The method must be simple enough that a new disciple can quickly pick it up and pass it on.

I’m having fun these days doing Discovery Bible Studies (DBS) with people who want to know more about Jesus.

This week I met with a twenty something professional. We’re working through Matthew’s Gospel. That wasn’t my plan, somehow we started in Genesis and jumped to Matthew. The guy is out of control. We’re meant to read one story at a time. He’s devouring great slabs of Matthew and bringing his questions.

I’m trying not to be the expert. I want him to discover truth for himself. I also want him to begin obeying what he’s learning. After we’d talked for an hour I asked him, “From everything that you’ve read so far in Matthew, what stands out? What has got your attention?” He didn’t need to think long about the answer—”Forgiveness.”

There were tears as he shared a very personal episode in his life, and the struggle he had to move on.

I said, “That’s what God wants to do in your life. That’s what you need to talk to him about this week.”

At that point we’d moved on from ideas and apologetics, to applying God’s word to his life. He hasn’t made a commitment to Christ yet, but he is learning what it means to be a disciple.

I want you to know that I’m not a natural at this. Far from it.

That’s why I rely on a simple approach like DBS. It’s a simple, reproducible method of evangelism and disciple making, that can lead to church formation. If you want to know more download David Watson’s guide and find someone who wants to know more about Jesus.

It wasn’t portable, just transportable.

I’ve been a Mac fan ever since. I can also admin to being a Steve Jobs fan.

This is my favourite Steve Jobs moment: his Commencement speech at the Stanford University in 2005. One of the best speeches I have ever heard.

He talks about the day he first discovered he had pancreatic cancer. His comments on death are profound.

His passing is a reminder that death comes to us all. For some it comes far too early.

Success and fame, the best medical treatment money can buy, cannot overturn that reality.

My daughter says, “Don’t be so morbid dad!” But death is our enemy. We stand powerless before it.

Unless . . .

Movements just went on sale in Brazil in Portuguese.

Worldwide, 240 million people speak Portuguese, so if you know anyone from, Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Portugal, Guinea-Bissau, or East Timor, let them know.

Finally some good environmental news. More baby whales are expected to migrate down Australia’s east coast than have been seen in 50 years.

I hope to do some whale spotting in a few weeks when I head up to Port Stephens for my brother’s 50th.