Author: Dave Miers

18 months ago I sent out a prayer letter. Issue 2 has yet to come out!! Everytime that James & Anita post on their blog they have prayer points. Another friend Marty sends out a couple of brief prayer points every two weeks via email. These are both easy to maintain. Therefore…. let me introduce you to……. Prayer Point Friday. My aim is to have a couple of prayer points each Friday. That means if you are not interested in reading what I write from Monday–Thursday but would like to pray for us… you can easily do it here. Also if you want to leave any brief prayer points in the comments section… we’d love to pray for you…

PRAISE:
>Row’s health better since finding allergies (she’s 26 tomorrow!)
>The encouragement of our growth group

PRAYER:
>David’s sermon this Sunday night on Matt 22
>That we would boast in the cross (Gal 6:14)

Around the web:
An Emerging Church Primer by Justin Taylor
Post-everythings by Tim Keller
Youth ministry tip by David Miers
Brilliant tool by ESV

Guessing competition: where was the above photo taken?

Here is the headline from a story in SMH yesterday: Youth leader escapes jail for dead possum prank (h/t Michelle). The youth group leader had a bunch of youth group boys with him when they decided to drag a dead possum behind the car that he was driving. They didn’t hurt the possum… it was already dead… but the family of the possum were humiliated by the abnormal funeral service. Some observations:

• I can see the humour in this story
• I can imagine youth group leaders I know doing this type of prank***
• I think the Magistrate overreacts
• People are watching Christians (including youth group leaders) wanting them to slip up
• Why does this article about an Australian written in an Australian newspaper use the American spelling for gaol??
• Youth group leaders need to make sure that they don’t do stupid stuff ever… but particularly when they are with teenagers… it’s not their name at stake but God’s Holy Name.
• I used to have an imaginary friend named Possum. He was a Possum.

***Hey Dan remember when one of your old youth group leaders dragged you behind his car??? The only difference was you were on a skateboard, you weren’t a dead possum, and you had to go to hospital after falling off! (BTW – the leader wasn’t me!)

Have you ever been a youth group leader? What’s the stupidest thing you have done in that role?

The picture is me as a girl… quite ugly… thanks for drawing it Kelly… it’s now in the bin.

iTunes has re-done the categories section under Podcasts in the music store. This means that once again there is a Religious & Spirituality section (and even a Christianity section). Therefore we’ll be encouraging listeners of our podcast to help us make an assault on the top100!!

While browsing the top100 I found a good daily podcast from FM103.2. It’s called Reflection and it features a 5-10minute reflection from John Dickson each weekday. Each day is pretty much based around a chapter of one of his books. It is definitely a podcast I would encourage teenagers to listen to and a good one they can share with their non-Christian friends. Click here to find out more or click here to subscribe with iTunes… hopefully it can jump from number 3 into number 1!

While you’re there check out Simon Manchester’s sermons here and here.

What podcasts do you listen to?

I started a new Bible reading plan this morning. Basically I am alternating between the NT and OT each morning. Today I started by reading a chunk of Matthew and tomorrow I plan on reading a chunk of Genesis and so on. There are 3 things that make this Bible reading different from what I’ve done before:

1. I read standing up (won’t fall asleep)
2. I read out loud (avoid mental drift)
3. I’m recording them as mp3s.

I’m recording them so that I can listen to them while driving or walking or running (probably not swimming) or whatever. The plan is to maybe have recorded the whole Bible by the end of the year??? We’ll see how we go.

I think it’s good to do different things when reading the Bible. Sometimes I might spend ages reflecting on a few verses. But I think it’s time for the Big Picture of the whole Bible.

What do you think of my new plan?
What’s your current Bible reading plan?
Never read the Bible? Check this out…

I think there are 2 key options for the planter of a church (this isn’t from any books or anything… just observation). 1) GO and 2) STAY.

GO – with this model the church planter establishes the church and then after a short number of years (2-5?) leaves to plant another one. When they leave they either train someone up from within the church to take it over or someone external to the church is brought in to continue the ministry. This is a strong model if the planter is very good at establishing a church quickly and able to find/ a suitable person to cntinue the work. It means many people are reached if the planter can plant a church every 3 years. However, it might be quite hard on the planter and the stability of each of the churches.

STAY – with this model the planter establishes the church with the plan to stay there longer term (maybe even forever). In order for this to be effective in planting more churches and reaching more people it must be effective in sending others to keep planting churches. This model can be very effective if the planter is able to build a large church and continue to train others with the vision for church planting.

I like the stay model. I think it’s more strategic. That is the model that the minister of our church has adopted and I think it means after 30 years of ministry in 1 church he will have been more effective than 30 years in 10 churches. All of this is written understanding that God is the one who gives the growth.

I’ve thought about this principle with regards to camps. I could keep starting more camps or I could stay leading the one camp and keep training people through it to start new camps. I think the 2nd option is better.

SERIOUS QUESTION: Where would be a good place to plant a church? Why?

ps… We had our 10 year anniversary celebration on Friday night. It was marvellous!

Tonight is the Central Coast Evangelical Church (CCEC) 10th Anniversary dinner. I’m currently finishing the ’10 – looking back and looking forward’ video to be launched tonight. Phillip Jensen and Andrew Heard will be speaking tonight, while John Woodhouse and Will Orpwood (our 1st MTS worker who helped plant the church with Andrew) will be speaking at church on Sunday. I am thankful to God for this church. There are so many exciting things going on as people are challenged from the Word of God. Praise God for the many people who become Christians throughout the year from sitting under sound teaching and/or attending Life to the Full. I’m not sure when I became a Christian – I may have already been one when I started coming here 9 years ago – but nonetheless it was in coming to this church that I understood how the death and resurrection of Jesus ought to impact every part of my life. I look forward to the future of this church and pray that it would continue to see non-Christians come from death to life and Christians matured in Jesus. I’m also excitied about the church plants that we’re a part of and look forward to more to come.

Do you go to CCEC? How are you thankful to God for our church?
If not… how are you thankful to God for your church?
If you don’t go to church – check this out…

Above photo is from our youth group camp this year – click to make a bit bigger…

My aim is to blog once every week day… but I can’t help but post again today. After our campaign with on the poddy (see here), among the bags of fan mail (thanks Ian + others) we’ve been receiving we received one from Denmark. She pleaded that we not Axe the show. She even did a review of us on her blog (poddytraining.blogspot.com). I like the punny title of her blog!

(click to make bigger or go to her post)

Can you read Dannish? What do you think this is saying? We can work out some bits… but the rest? We’ll read out the best interpretation out on the show…

Bible verse of the day