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I’ve been looking forward to announcing this event… it’s going to be BIG!! Tickets aren’t available yet, but lock it into your youth group calendar for term 4… LIVE OUT LOUD is a youth rally sponsored by Connect 09 and fervr.net on Friday 4th December 2009. Christian teenagers can bring their friends along to hear the good news of Jesus.
Tickets available on the website soon…
There are valuable and important lessons to be learnt from books on leadership, strategy and vision. In the quote below, Don Carson warns that insights from these fields must never replace the Cross of Jesus at the centre of Christian life and ministry.
At the moment, books are pouring off the presses telling us how to plan for success, how “vision” consists in clearly articulated “ministry goals,” how the knowledge of detailed profiles of our communities constitutes the key to successful outreach. I am not for a moment suggesting that there is nothing to be learned from such studies. But after a while one may perhaps be excused for marvelling how many churches were planted by Paul and Whitefield and Wesley and Stanway and Judson without enjoying these advantages. Of course all of us need to understand the people to whom we minister, and all of us can benefit from small doses of such literature. But massive doses sooner or later dilute the gospel. Ever so subtly, we start to think that success more critically depends on thoughtful sociological analysis than on the gospel; Barna becomes more important than the Bible. We depend on plans, programs, vision statements – but somewhere along the way we have succumbed to the temptation to displace the foolishness of the cross with the wisdom of strategic planning. Again, I insist, my position is not a thinly veiled plea for obscurantism, for seat-of-the-pants ministry that plans nothing. Rather, I fear that the cross, without ever being disowned, is constantly in danger of being dismissed from the central place it must enjoy, by relatively peripheral insights that take on far too much weight. Whenever the periphery is in danger of displacing the center, we are not far removed from idolatry.
(taken from D.A. Carson The Cross and Christian Ministry: Leadership Lessons from 1 Corinthians – Baker Books p. 26)
The progression from preaching the gospel to denying the gospel is a dangerous slippery slope (preaching > assuming > neglecting > denying). Are you a Christian? Keep the main thing the main thing! Not a Christian? Go read about the main thing.
Andrew Heard, Al Stewart and Mikey Lynch have recently announced the beginning of a new national church planting network, GENEVA. Here’s an interview with Andrew Heard.
Because of the gospel imperative to keep proclaiming Christ to the world. We want to swamp Australia with healthy, energetic, theologically grounded churches that can turn our county upside down by reaching thousands more for Christ.
The aim of Geneva is to be a servant to the denominations and networks. It isn’t interested in being anything in itself. We want to be a tool that others use. The power of pooling our resources across the various denominations and networks from around the country is that we can do much more than we could do separately.
Jonathan Edwards wrote a killer book 200+ years ago, The Religious Affections (read it for free). John Piper has unashamedly modelled his life, ministry and passion for Jesus upon Edwards’ thesis of the place of the affections in the Christian life. Check out DesiringGod.org (search results for Edwards) for a truckload of Piper/Edwards gear.
All people have affections. We’re all moved by stuff. The following quote is about Jesus – and how he is most worthy of our affections:
If we ought ever to exercise our affections at all, and if the Creator has not unwisely constituted the human nature in making these principles a part of it, when they are vain and useless; then they ought to be exercised about those objects which are most worthy of them. But is there anything which Christians can find in heaven or earth, so worthy to be the objects of their admiration and love, their earnest and longing desires, their hope, and their rejoicing, and their fervent zeal, as those things that are held forth to us in the gospel of Jesus Christ?
Continue reading “Jonathan Edwards | Get your affections on!”
Rowan Hilsden will be finishing at Moore College at the end of this year. In 2010 Rowan, his wife Sarah and their family will be moving to Auckland to plant an evangelical church. This is exciting stuff!! Check out their website for info on how you can partner with them in this venture… whether you’re in Auckland or not. Here’s a snippet from their site:
[…] Auckland is a city in dire need for biblically based teaching which is theologically grounded, focused on Jesus and seeking growth. […] We would love to get in contact with anyone in Auckland: Who wants to see Auckland impacted by the life, death, resurrection and ascension of the historical Jesus; Who is thirsting for good teaching that leads to maturity in Christ; Who has not yet experienced the wonder of knowing Christ.
Check out their website to find out how you can get in on the action!
Church planting is so hot right now! Good. Below is a letter from Andrew Heard and Al Stewart with further information about the new Geneva Church Planting Network.
There is much happening at the moment in the world of church planting. It is exciting stuff! In all of this a number of people have asked for clarification regarding the new church planting network called Geneva. People have wondered what it will be doing and what it might offer.
Geneva will be run by a board of Australian church planters which will include Al Stewart, Andrew Heard and Mikey Lynch. Its purpose will be to help reformed/evangelical networks and denominations recruit, assess, train, coach and mentor church planters for placement back into their various networks and denominations. The passion of Geneva is to establish not just culturally relevant growing church plants but ones that are grounded deeply in reformed theology and so able to be kept from simple pragmatism and fads. This core value is critical for establishing churches that are best able to pass on a vibrant gospel to future generations.
Well-known Christian apologist and all-round smart dude, Dr James White, will be speaking in Sydney and Brisbane over the upcoming week. “James White is the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a Christian apologetics organization based in Phoenix, Arizona. He is the author of more than twenty books, a professor, an accomplished debater, and an elder of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.”
Here’s the itinerary: