2012. A new year. Resolutions, decisions, choices to be made. What if…?
Over on Kevin DeYoung’s blog, guest blogger Jason Helopoulos asks this intriguing question: (more…)
Category Archives: Training
Bring on the revolution
Resource Talk, Sola Panel
One of the more exciting and unexpected outcomes of the success of The Trellis and the Vine has been a kind of extended book tour that Col Marshall and I have been doing around the place for the last 18 months—running ‘Trellis and Vine’ workshops, talking to people about the ideas, interacting. (more…)
Jedi masters and the body of Christ
Everyday Ministry, Sola Panel
I’m about to use Yoda as a model for Christian love. If you haven’t seen the Star Wars movies, you’ll probably be mystified by what I’m about to say. This is not the article you’re looking for. (more…)
A course is a course, of course
Resource Talk, Sola Panel
There are two ways to change a culture, as Tony Payne said in last December’s Briefing. You can run as many people as possible through your programs and courses and hope for the best. Or, you can work individually and with small pockets of people to change the culture. The latter is slow and sometimes inefficient, but it tends to be the surest way to see a lasting difference in attitudes and direction.
What the guru learned
Pastoral Ministry, Sola Panel
It’s amazing how easily one becomes a guru these days. Just do the following: a) get together with an old friend and write down a few basic and hardly earth-shattering thoughts about the nature of church life and ministry; b) publish these ideas as a book and wait for it to become a surprise international bestseller; c) travel around the US, running workshops for pastors and astounding people with your insight and wisdom (as you talk further about aforesaid non-earth-shattering ideas). (more…)
Three big questions for your small groups
Resource Talk, Sola Panel
In recent months, Col Marshall and I have been running some workshops based on The Trellis and the Vine, and during the workshops we spent a bit of time talking about small groups—about why we have them (or don’t), the part they normally play in church life, how we train our leaders (or don’t as the case may be), and so on.
Diary of a ministry apprentice (Part 6): November-December 2008
Pastoral Ministry
Guan Un, wearer of glasses, drinker of coffee, husband of M.,1 was an apprentice in the ministry training strategy (MTS) in 2008 at the University of New South Wales. In the previous instalment, Guan compared how success is measured in life and in ministry, and pondered taking on another year of MTS. In this final entry, Guan has decided to go on to study at Bible college, and reflects on a year of relationships, transformation, and constant mistakes. (more…)
Two ways to change a culture
Everyday Ministry, Resource Talk, Sola Panel
How do you change the culture of a church?
We talked about this question quite a bit at the ‘Trellis and Vine Workshops’ that Col Marshall and I had the privilege of leading recently in the US. It was an issue that many of the pastors at the workshops felt keenly.
The trials of theology
Review
The Trials of Theology
Edited by Andrew Cameron and Brian Rosner
Christian Focus, Ross-shire, 2009, 192pp.
I never thought I’d go to theological college. In truth, I fancied the idea of studying theology as an abstract intellectual exercise, but had little inclination to put that learning to any practical use. I thought this a rather poor reason to go. Biblical scholarship for its own sake seemed to me to be a self-serving trap that was best avoided. This fear of the ‘ivory tower’ is one of the struggles and temptations that can accompany studying the things of God that is detailed in The Trials of Theology. This collection of wisdom, edited by Andrew Cameron and Brian Rosner, is a reader intended for those engaged in theological education: short pieces from Christians from both the past (Augustine, Luther, Spurgeon, Warfield, Bonhoeffer, and CS Lewis) and the present (DA Carson, Carl Trueman, Gerald Bray, Dennis Hollinger, and John Woodhouse). (more…)
Jars of clay: Page by page
Everyday Ministry
Like many good ideas, this one was pinched from someone else. It was 2003, and Ben (my husband) and I were enmeshed in our first year of ministry training with the Evangelical Christian Union (ECU) at the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia. At a recent area committee meeting, we heard Peter Hughes (who was then a staffworker at the University of Western Sydney) talk about his decision to do away with main campus meetings and, instead, focus on small groups. He had started giving his students a double-sided A4 broadsheet each week as a way of building relationships, maintaining community and injecting a bit of sound teaching into their lives. The front featured a short article he’d written about the Bible or Christianity; the back had Bible study questions and prayer points. (more…)
Diary of a ministry apprentice (Part 5): August to almost-the-end-of 2008
Everyday Ministry
Here is the fifth instalment of Guan’s six-part series, covering his time doing ministry training (MTS) at the University of New South Wales in 2008. He is married to M.1 By now, it is the latter half of the year. We last left Guan at the end of Mid-Year Conference (MYC), amazed at how the week has reminded him how many things in life are bigger than us as individuals: the body of Christ, Jesus in his sovereign reign, and the God with a plan for all of his creation. (more…)
Exciting times for ministry recruiting
Pastoral Ministry
The ministry recruitment landscape in Sydney, NSW and the ACT is changing.
It is very exciting. In 2010 MTS changed it’s Sydney conference calendar. Instead of running a residential SPUR Conference (formerly called Club 5 or Challenge) on the October long weekend we decided to replace it with a non-residential conference in May.
“Why?” you ask. Well, there were several reasons.
On target
Resource Talk, Sola Panel
I still remember the first time I heard Phillip Jensen preach. It was in February 1981, and I was a fresh-faced, charismatically-inclined young Christian, just down from the country, eager to learn and grow, and ready to take on the world.
Diary of a ministry apprentice (Part 4): June-July 2008
Pastoral Ministry
This is the fourth instalment of a six-part series by Guan, who is the kind of person who is difficult to describe in one sentence. He is married to the singular M1 and, by this episode, has done ministry training (MTS) at the University of New South Wales for about six months. In the previous instalment, he and the other apprentices, in the midst of coping with the stress of starting out in ministry, learned that Paul ‘Grimmo’ Grimmond, the university pastor, is leaving. In addition, it’s almost time for Mid-Year Conference (MYC), the big student camp in the middle of the year. But first, holidays. (more…)
Diary of a ministry apprentice (Part 3): March to May-ish 2008
Pastoral Ministry
Here is the third part of this six-part series written by Guan who, in his spare time, likes to think about things. He is married to the remarkable M,1 and by this instalment, has been doing ministry training (MTS) at the University of New South Wales (hereafter referred to as the ‘Uni’) for about four months. So far, he’s mostly learned that starting out in ministry and meeting people is exciting and inspiring when you begin to notice the way the gospel carves through people’s lives. This far in, the work starts to get easier. (more…)