What’s in a name? Does it matter if we call someone a ‘church planter’ or ‘church founder’? According to Phillip Jensen, it matters quite a lot. (more…)
Author Archives: The Briefing
From seed to flower: Reflections on church planting
Pastoral Ministry
Northern Lakes Evangelical Church meets in the northern part of the Central Coast in New South Wales, Australia. Connan O’Shea reflects on the past three years since it began.
A very Sola Panel survey (Scott Newling)
Review
Review: John Calvin: A heart for devotion, doctrine & doxology
Review
2009 marks John Calvin’s 500th birthday. 500 years on, he is still a figure of controversy. Sure, his Institutes of the Christian Religion still stands as arguably the guide to the biblical Christian faith. (more…)
Sergio, evangelism and customer service
Everyday Ministry
Winter arrived in Monterrey with a bang this week. As a result, we joined the shivering throng at our local giant hardware chain (Australian readers: think Bunnings on steroids) to buy a heater. We were served by Sergio1 who spoke excellent English, who had wonderful customer service skills, who knew very little about heaters and who got me thinking about evangelism. (more…)
The male rights movement sticks its head up again
Life
Most people probably ignored the International Men’s Day on 19th November. Those who didn’t may have noticed the launch of a new website One in Three (www.oneinthree.com.au). This is the latest attempt from the male rights movement (which most, perhaps, don’t even know exists!) to break another appalling silence in our society. (more…)
Do we pass on more error than we realize?
Thought
In every culture, stories are begun (and go on to prosper) because they explain something important to us. In Christian circles, it’s often the best sermon illustrations that are passed on, from one to another. But I’ve come across two illustrations that preachers regularly use that are untrue. What should we make of them?
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“What do you say when…?” Taxicab conversations
Up front
As promised in Briefing #367, here’s another example of how to speak God’s life-changing word in any and every situation—this time, from Simon Manchester, who writes about what to say when you’re in a taxi and the driver seems talkative. (more…)
A very Sola Panel survey (Nicole Starling)
Review
Who is the ‘experienced’ church planter?
Pastoral Ministry
Anyone who knows me knows that, in God’s manifold grace, I’m very much on the ‘church waterer’ end of things, rather than on the church planter end! So please forgive me for dipping a toe into something I don’t know too much about. Nevertheless, while I’ve not kept up with all the discussions and conferences and so forth, in the things that I have read, a question has been slowly developing in my mind—a question that I’d like to ask by way of clarification. It was raised again for me by Ben’s recent post on the Acts 29 conference.
Maybe the answer is already out there and I just haven’t seen it (which is very likely). Whatever the case, what are your thoughts on the following: what makes someone an ‘experienced’ church planter? And, to that end, who is a ‘church planter’?
Dos and don’ts when dealing with the downcast
Life
I have been talking with a long-term friend of mine in recent weeks. He’s a believer, who has had a harder-than-average road to walk. That, combined with some bad Christian teaching and an inherent susceptibility, has finally created a perfect storm of mental ill health.
The thing that surprised me when talking to him recently is that as he begins the process of recovering from a depressive/anxiety breakdown, he has had to avoid his Christian friends and family. The reason? They care. And in their care, they inevitably call on him to trust God, to look to God, to place himself in God’s hands or the like. They can’t avoid exhorting him to stir up his faith, however “softly, softly” they venture it.
The problem? His world is little more than darkness without any reasonable possibility of improvement. He is overwhelmed with burdens that seem silly to anyone not him, but to him, they are the fixed compass of his universe. He is barely standing up under the weight of just being himself.
But add an exhortation to do something to that load—especially one like “trust God”—and you have far more than a single straw to break the camel’s back. You have essentially made brick from that straw and hurled it onto the load. You have given him one more thing—and it’s a critical thing at that—to whip himself with as he judges himself to not be trusting God.
A very Sola Panel survey (Paul Grimmond)
Review
Barry Newman on what is the soul?
Review
Before you do anything else today (apart from reading your Bible, brushing your teeth and praying), point your browser to Barry Newman’s blog, set it on autopilot and wait for the good stuff to roll in. Right now he is looking at what the Bible has to say about the soul. (more…)
Does your church believe in the clarity of Scripture?
Pastoral Ministry
I’ve noticed in recent years that, although we can make good and well-intentioned ministry decisions, when combined with other good ministry decisions, these decisions produce a poisonous gas that threatens the wellbeing of our churches. In other words, the way we’ve chosen to work out the implications of our theological commitments can come at the expense of other theological commitments. (more…)
Australia’s first Acts 29 boot camp: An Aussie review
Pastoral Ministry
I’m sitting on a plane at Brisbane airport. I’ve just spent two days at the first Australian Acts 29 Church Planters boot camp. I went because I was tired of hearing about Acts 29 (and Mars Hill Church and Mars Hill Global) second-hand. I wanted to meet the people leading the movement face-to-face and hear ‘from the horse’s mouth’. Let me share with you what I thought, and let me tell you about the who, what, when, where and how of the conference.
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