backyardmissionary

The big difference between a shitty day of being a pastor/missionary and a shitty day of being a teacher is that when I’m a pastor/missionary I don’t think about finding another job.
I love this work and its my calling to a tee. I am teacher by neccessity now.
When the paper comes out tomorrow I’ll be […]

Anyone feel game to define marriage biblically and culturally?
I reckon this is one of the big questions we face as the church in an era where cohabitation is the norm.
If two people who don’t call themselves Christians live together in a committed monogamous relationship with a view to being together for ever are they […]

Ellie’s words as she watched the Purslowe funeral company’s TV ad…
If only she knew!

I just discovered my mate Gareth has a blog.
He is one of our Forge interns this year and has realised that a requirement for church planting is the ability to produce a blog!
Gareth is in the process of planting a new missional community out of Subiaco Church of Christ. He isn’t geeky enough to figure […]

Last night Danelle and I went to the Brighton footy club quiz night with 6 of our neighbours.
I have to be honest to not holding a lot of hope for our success!
But by the end of the night we had come third and won a bottle of wine each and I somehow fluked the door […]

As I write this our team is meeting.
I am obviously not there - still feeling very headachey and vague.
Its hard because I love what we are doing here and love to be involved.
When people talk with me about Brighton they often ask ‘could you ever go back to an established church?’
My answer - of course! […]

When you don’t feel like any of these you are sick…
I have spent the last two days hanging around the house, lying in bed with some ugly fluey symptoms while the weather has been sensational and the surf has been brilliant.
Kinda depressing - the last two days of school holidays…
Gone…

I’m not sure what’s going on.
I have had a shocking headache and mildy sore throat for the last three days. I feel pretty miserable, grumpy and not like hanging around anyone.
Its a real bummer though because today was one of those sensational autumn days - 26 degrees - all day easterlies and sunshine - […]

It used to be Thursday.
Now its… good question…
In my previous role as a pastor of a church I knew that Thursdays I would not go to the office, not hang out with most church people and spend the time doing relaxing things that I didn’t have time for at other points in the week. Usually […]

Yeeha!
Our second intensive for 2004 will run from Aug 7th -10th and it will be HUGE!!
Al Hirsch and Kim Hammond are coming over from Vic, while Brian Stitt and Mike Prince will bring some local content.
If you’d like to know more then email me and I will send you the info.

I have just started reading Hey Nostradamus, by Douglas Coupland (Generation X fame)
Here’s an excerpt from the review
The opening narrator, Cheryl Anway, is the 17-year-old victim of a Columbine-style high-school massacre. Just before she was murdered in 1988, Cheryl had secretly married her high-school sweetheart Jason Klaasen and was expecting their child. The couple […]

The singing thing has generated some reaction. Dan has a post with her take on it and there are some interesting comments in the previous post.
As I was chatting with Geoff Westlake (a biannual blogger!) today on the way home from our Forge team meeting I mentioned the singing question and we discussed it a […]

On Sunday night I spoke again at a friend’s church and shared some of the Brighton story - what we’re about, what we ‘do’, yada yada yada…
While speaking I spotted a couple in the crowd who I thought I knew - so after the service I went up and said g’day. It turned out we […]

For a few weeks now I have had a gut feeling that something is wrong with the way we have been functioning as a team.
Essentially it relates to a lack of cohesion/sense of ‘team’ and the need for us to establish more clearly some of our identity. It took me a while to articulate exactly […]

Today I went to see The Passion with a mate.
It has taken me a while, but I never felt up for a Saturday night out watching a bloke have the crap beaten out of him before dying.
It was a pretty affronting movie - less so than I expected (the advantage of hearing so much hype!) […]

Yesterday was the best day we have had so far surfing at the Alkimos.
My brother and I headed up there for a couple of hours of glassy head high + waves, with only one other taker. It got pretty hairy at times trying to get the 8″8′ mal out thru the sets, but […]

Today I woke at 6.00 and tried to quietly sneak around the kitchen getting breakfast. An hour without kids at that time of day is verrry nice!
But Ellie sprung me… and asked for pancakes…
So ended that hour of quiet!

Its one of those days when as a person with ‘flexible working hours’I seem to be hearing God calling me to the beach!
I seem to be hearing that voice a lot this week…
Thing is I have a heap of stuff that simply won’t get done if I listen to that voice!

As a team we are working to develop a biblical and functional leadership structure.
We have split into three teams to explore the NT teachings on this subject. One group is looking at the Gospels, on the Acts and Romans and the other the rest.
We are looking at these questions as we read:
1. What do you […]

One of the questions I believe we face as a team is the shaping of identity and what that means for people joining us.
One the one hand we want to be an ‘everybody welcome’ type of deal where people can from anywhere in terms of their proximity to God and feel like they belong. But […]