backyardmissionary

I have been wondering for a while now about this and my wise old friend who is almost as good looking as me has beaten me to the draw.
TSK looks at various ways in which spirituality is expressed thru blogging. In particular I am interested in his perception of blogging as a spiritual discipline. […]

Here’s a serious and fairly critical question I am pondering about how leadership looks in a pioneering context.
Is the primary role of the pioneering leader to:
a) Act as a catalyst and empower others to engage in missional activity that is in line with their calling and gifting. This will mean that ‘less happens’ unless […]

We have called ourselves ‘Upstream Communities’ because we believe the call of the gospel is to live counter-culturally in the suburbs we find ourselves in.
That means rethinking how we do relationships, use our time, our money, our possessions etc.
Our name is a constant reminder of who we are called to be. I find it confronting
Right […]

It was going so well.
I was reading Richard Foster’s article on spiritual formation and finding myself engaging with everything he was saying. Then this statement stumped me:
“In practicing the Spiritual Disciplines we are simply learning to fall in love with Jesus over and over and over again.”
Is that really what we are doing?
At the Forge […]

A good mate has just begun a new project and its web home is http://www.feedfivethousand.com

Owen Beck is a Brighton local and has a dream for helping people in need get a feed and a few mates, so each Sunday he is heading down to a park near the church he part of with […]

While there is no question that scripture was written in and for a specific cultural context, this is also a great card to play if some aspect of the Bible doesn’t suit us.
Don’t like wearing hats to church? Its ok girls cause it was cultural
Want to have a same sex marriage? Go for it. […]

Spent this morning at the local park with the kids and then hanging out on the street with a few of our neighbours. Good weather has a way of bringing people outdoors. Sounds like there are changes afoot round our street.
R & C have abandoned ideas of building, are selling their block and will […]

We had an amazing holiday in Bangkok.
Some highlights…
- Spending time with Jeff & Tara. There are some people who just energise you with their presence. These guys are those kind of people. Just to hang with them was worth going there.
- The food. I love food… a little too much sometimes, and Thailand is […]

We’re off to Bangkok today.
Seeya in a while…
Hamo

What would you read if you were on holidays?…
Tomorrow we leave for Bangkok - no kids and a great time hanging out with some really good friends. If its a holiday then I need to take a book or 3.
I went to the local library today and found 3 books that I have been hoping […]

Yesterday was the ‘Future Church’ forum run by the Church of Christ youth crew here in WA. Scott, who ran the day describes it like this:
It was a discussion day in which 7 topics were floated at the start with 3 spots for discussion. People voted at the start of the day on […]

Ok - thanks for the comments on the last post. Here are my own thoughts.
I believe its wrong to steal stuff - and that’s what pirated DVD’s, t shirts etc are, so I won’t be buying any. Pretty simple.
Then again I was a Christian 10 years ago and didn’t see it this way. So - […]

Steve Addison suggests this pic may be a metaphor for where the church finds itself today.
The church, which was built in the early 1880s, had no-one inside when it was destroyed by the run-away prime-mover. The truck’s trailer held up the roof of the building while the truck cabin was perched on the edge […]

Phil Parshall is well known for his C1-C6 contextualisation spectrum and its application to an Islamic context. However what would it mean for us to think in those terms for Oz?
Here’s a summary of what its all about. Make sure you have a read of the different stages otherwise the rest of this post will […]

This Thursday Danelle and I head off to Bangkok for 7 days minus the kids who will be staying with my parents. I haven’t actually given the trip any thought yet, but todayas I was out walking I began to think and realised that in a few days time we will be faced with an […]

There’s a fair bit of truth in this post.
If the aim of the game is to ‘find a decent church’ then this rings fairly true. However if we accept that church is aways going to be a fallen community, with all sorts of flaws, then maybe we can just get on with the job of […]

Tomorrow is our mid year review of how we are going here at Brighton.
I find I often get anxious about these types of days because its easy to be negative and see all that’s not happening, or to focus on the struggles, rather than to see where God is at work and where the […]

Taz Daz, my friend and director of Forge in Tasmania just sent thru pics of the snow in his backyard in Hobart.
I have just pulled on a pair of short and hitched up the boat to enjoy winter in Perth out on the water. (And in case you’re wondering - Tuesday’s fishing didn’t happen […]

Some days its kinda crazy having three different jobs. Here’s how it looked today.
First up there was an hour long drive down the freeway to meet up with Dave, the National Director of YFC to discuss how Forge and YFC may better connect.
During the drive I made several work related calls to try and […]

Last night at our team meeting we were asked several questions about ourselves to try and help one another get some new insights into our lives.
I’ll share with you what I said and maybe a few of you will reply…
* When confronted with conflict are you a snake or armadillo?
I think people might see me […]