Just over a year ago, I started a blog. I was full of enthusiasm and daring—the kind of enthusiasm that only comes from an almost complete ignorance of the project you’re about to embark upon. I guessed it would be a great opportunity for ministry. What I didn’t anticipate is how God used this new ministry to perform surgery on my heart. (more…)
Podcast: Laying the foundations at Church by the Bridge
Audio
Paul Grimmond speaks to Paul Dale about his role as pastor of Church by the Bridge and the place of one-to-one ministry in his busy life (MP3).
The power and inadequacy of biological determinism
Thought
Yes, it’s been a while since I last posted. And so you may be forgiven for forgetting where we’re up to. I’m talking about my preparation for an evangelistic talk on sex (see the start of the posts). And last time, I tried to show that biological determinism lies at the heart of the modern story of sex. To put it simply, we’ve evolved in such a way that we’re made to have sex—lots of sex, with multiple partners. And because it’s biologically determined, we have no choice. Today, I want to reflect on the power and inadequacy of this position.
His eye is on the magpie
Life
Last week my children made an exciting discovery: high up in the branches of the gum tree in the back yard of the house next door, a magpie was building a nest. For three days, we were transfixed, taking it in turns to look through the binoculars and watch him flying up with tiny sticks, one at a time, carefully adding them to the nest.
On the fourth day, it was windy, and we craned our necks, anxiously watching the upper branches of the gum tree. Would the nest survive? Had this little magpie chosen the wisest place to build a home for his family? We talked about how sad it would be for the poor bird if all his hard work was lost in a sudden gust of wind.
A rich man’s identity discovered?
Thought
Ever since I first came into contact with the rich fool of Luke 12, I’ve been intrigued by the stupidities of his personality. He is a man so rich that he can even afford to tear down his barns and build bigger ones. This is a strange piece of non-thriftiness that a friend from a farming background assured me is still not unknown in rural Australia—something which I witnessed, in modified English form, for myself just the other day. (Well okay, watching Grand Designs on the telly may not count as ‘witnessing’, but let’s just say that there are enough rich fools about for any of us to recognize the type.)
Is history what you make, or what you receive?
Life
History. We might be standing in it, but which direction are we looking?
The Terminator told us he would be back, but the latest version disappointed fans because the Governor of California was reduced to a Computer Animated bit-part. For the Australian, T4 was rescued somewhat by the presence of our own Sam Worthington—but only just!
Even though it struggles a bit with the inherent fatalism of a future that seems to march inevitably towards the present, no matter what is done in the present, a major theme of this series of movies now stretching across a quarter of a century is that the future is not fixed; fate is what you make.
MiniZines
Resource Talk
This is the final instalment in my series of posts introducing the range of new Matthias Media resources that have just arrived in. And today’s takes a bit of explaining. Here goes…
One of the issues we’ve grappled with for many years at Matthias Media relates to our monthly magazine, The Briefing. Each year, writers and editors pour countless hours of thought and hard work into putting together helpful magazine-length articles on a wide range of important topics. The people who happen to be subscribing to The Briefing at that time get the benefit of reading that article. But once it is published, that’s pretty much it; it’s unlikely to see the light of day again or be read by anyone else.
Frankly, magazine publishing often feels a bit ‘vapour-ish’ in an Ecclesiastes kind of a way: here one month, gone the next. Which is a shame, because the articles we publish are extremely useful material.
What ministry is about 5
Pastoral Ministry, Sola Panel
Here’s the fifth of ten propositions about church life and ministry (taken from the forthcoming Matthias Media title, The Trellis and the Vine). The others have been:
- Our goal is to make disciples not church members.
- Churches tend towards institutionalism as sparks fly upward.
- The heart of disciple-making is prayerful speaking of God’s word.
- All ministry has the goal of nurturing disciples, not just one-to-one discipling or mentoring.
- To be a disciple is to be a disciple-maker:
It’s time
Resource Talk
The next in my series of posts introducing some of our recent releases at Matthias Media is about a tract called It’s Time to Come Home.
Let me start by pinching some comments Tony made recently in The Briefing:
With a little reflection, perhaps the continued popularity of tracts is not so surprising. They might not mount mind-blowing theological arguments, or be masterpieces of literature. They might not be trendy or on the cutting edge of digital culture. But they are short. They are cheap. They are easy to buy and give away. And most of all, if you want to start a conversation with someone—or continue a conversation that’s been going on for some time—they are hard to beat.
The most dangerous excuse for avoiding a conference
Pastoral Ministry, Sola Panel
What’s the most dangerous excuse for avoiding a conference?
I reckon it’s the one that says, “I’m not going to that conference because I’ve heard what they’re going to say before”.
Maybe you don’t go because because the particular conference speakers are not going to say anything new! But I go because the conference speakers are not saying anything new!
The timeless truths of an everlasting God
Resource Talk
The Everlasting God by Broughton Knox is another ‘new’ book that has just become available through Matthias Media. But it’s not really new; it’s a new edition of a book that was first published more than 25 years ago. (more…)
By God’s word (Volume 2)
Resource Talk
The next of the new resources I want to share with you is By God’s Word (Volume 2).
I suspect the majority of Sola Panel readers would be familiar with the name and Bible teaching ministry of Phillip Jensen. For those of you who don’t know, Phillip is the person who started Matthias Media some 21 years ago. (You can learn more about Phillip at his website).
To be quite frank, I don’t think I could name anybody who knows, understands, and loves God’s word more than Phillip. Nor can I think of anybody as gifted at teaching it and applying it to life.
God’s cure for weariness
Life, Sola Panel
Weary (adj.) Physically or mentally fatigued. Having one’s interest, forbearance, or indulgence worn out. Extremely tired: bleary, dead, drained, exhausted, fatigued, rundown, spent, tired out, wearied, weariful, worn-down, worn-out.
It was a weariful week. It came right at the end of three months of draining ministry. I’d been looking forward to this week for months. I’d been telling myself that I just had to make it through the next month/week/day, and then I could rest.
As I spoke the final words of my final seminar, I could feel the burden lifting. Yes! Time for relaxation! But it seems God had other ideas. My week of rest turned out to be a week of sickness, exhaustion and discouragement.
Getting yourself right side up
Resource Talk
Over the next week, I intend to introduce some of the latest new resources from Matthias Media.
Today, I thought we might kick off with the brand new book written by one of our esteemed Sola Panelists, Paul Grimmond. It is Paul’s ‘debut’ book Right Side Up.
Like preachers who regularly preach that “The passage we are looking at today is one of the most significant passages in the Bible”, I guess I also run the risk of devaluing the currency when I say that “This latest resource is one of the most significant we’ve published”. Naturally enough, I get pretty excited about all our new resources.
But even when I force myself to apply some objectivity to the assessment, I am going to stick to my guns on the significance of this book for at least two reasons.
Why Johnny can’t preach (Part 4)
Review
Having heard that Johnny can’t preach, Johnny can’t read and Johnny can’t write (read parts 1, 2 and 3), one could be tempted to think that David T Gordon is an old crank, romantically reminiscing about how good things were when he was a lad, and complaining about the state of the world in ‘the modern times’ (along with young people and their loud music!)