backyardmissionary

Its one of those days when we are able to get away for a whole day to somewhere out of the hustle of life.
Over the last few years I have scheduled these days in, but have found myself cancelling them as I have looked at all that needs doing. It always seems less urgent to […]

Today I met with Graham Johnson the senior pastor of Subiaco Church of Christ, one of our big local churches.
Graham is a fantastic supporter of Forge and while he is not called to do what I do, he is able to appreciate the value and offer encouragement. Graham’s church was homebase for saint gaz […]

It seems there is a quite a move out there to try and bring the so called ‘emerging church’ movement into disrepute and possibly even stamp it out.
I had heard of Don Carson’s 3 talk series, but hadn’t taken much notice. However today I downloaded all three MP3’s to actually check out what he says. […]

Its been a busy weekend!
Easter Friday was quite relaxing - I spent some of it watching the Jesus video with Ellie. (It really isn’t a quality movie is it?!) But it was great to sit with her and explain the whole story and describe Jesus to her. I found it very moving to do that […]

Roland Allen suggest that our obsession with (wat we perceive to be) correct doctrine and our own standards of morality are significant hindrances to the ’spontaneous expansion of the church’ as he calls it.
What does he mean?
Doesn’t he value doctrine or morality?
Not the case at all, but he does say that when we get more […]

Seems I’m not the only one this idea has resonated with. This article expresses a lot of my own experience.

Unemployed?
Your’re just not thinking creatively!

Doesn’t happen in the kingdom of God… does it?..
Feeling tired and feisty tonight after an interesting day, so probably best I leave it at that…

I am in the process of reading Paul’s letters (one every few days) to try and get a perspective on how he functioned as an apostolic missionary leader with oversight of a number of churches.
It does offer a different take on what he has to from our normal reading. (Myabe its just me but its […]

41.6 degrees C
water like glass
fish everywhere
we can see them from the boat
why can’t we catch the buggers?…

Keep in mind that this book was first written in 1927 for those engaged in foreign missions… (and as such is probably very relevant for a post-christian context)
Allen asks how can the gospel spread (in foreign countries) if there is always presupposed to be a need for paid missionaries, buildings and infrastructure? The gospel that […]

I have just started reading three new books. Actually 2 are very old and one is recent.
The two oldies are by Roland Allen, a British Anglican guy who was a missonary in the early to mid 20th C. His books were first published c. 1920.
One is called The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church and the […]

Here is my last post in visual form for those who prefer images. I also like the idea of being in the ’stream’ rather than separate from.

It took us a while to arrive at team name, but we have finally done it. As of tonight we have adopted the name ‘Upstream Communities’, (almost feels quite anticlimactic now that I write it…) as the name for our group here in Brighton.
It was a toss up between ’seachange’ and ‘upstream’ as the key […]

How can the EMC and the Established church co-exist?
Actually a prelim question actually relates to what we see the EMC as being. There is so much divergence on this one issue that to answer the original question might be tricky.
Anyway here are my thoughts as to how we can work together:

Recognise we are all […]

This is the million dollar question…
‘How can the emerging missional church and the established church co-exist?’
Its not my question this time, but Roo’s, one of our forge interns. It is his .acom assignment question and he has posted it on his blog and asked for some online input.
I suggested it would be an […]

I liked this pic of Sam… He’s such a happy kid and this just captures him well - contented and enjoying life!

A few weeks back at the end of the Forge intensive I wrote about the challenge I felt God was putting to me to get involved in some way with the whole area of justice and marginalised people.
I said that this time I would do something. I wasn’t sure what… but it would mean something. […]

Something Al Hirsch said to me as we were driving home from a meeting a few weeks back…
"The majority of evangelical Christians are confessing particularists but practicing universalists"
It has stuck with me because I reckon it rings too true. What we say about the nature of the gospel and how we then practice that often […]

It seems most of my life I learn by having a go, making mistakes and then doing it better next time until I start to get it right.
I have never written a book before and I sense my journey into this arena will take a similar turn.  I have spent some time on the […]