backyardmissionary

As of today this blog will be given minimal attention for the next two weeks.
We are off to the south west, partly to have a holiday and partly to do some coaching of the rural youth pastors.
We will be in Margaret River until Friday when we shift across to Katanning until Monday and the we’ll […]

Tonight is another of Forge WA ‘Postcards’ evenings and this time we welcome back John Jensen who will be talking with us around the subject of ‘Just What is mission?’
If you know the Rev you’d know he’s engaging, provocative and has a great sense of humour.
Here are the details :
Date: Fri Nov 25th (tonight)
Venue: […]

Barro is a top bloke doing the same kind of stuff as us only in the badlands (Melbourne)
I met up with Steve at the Forge Dangerous Stories conference earlier in the year and connected really well. An earthy Oz bloke who is doing a great job in his local community.

The beauty of what we are doing here in Brighton is that it is a constant work in progress - always open to change and re-directing as we see the need.
When we met last night we were discussing how we reshape ourselves again so others can join in more fully if they wish. Earlier this […]

There is a lot of talk in blog-land about new expressions of church and mission. Sometimes this catalyses to action and other times it simply spirals into navel gazing and pontificating.
It is now official that ’something is up’ in Joondalup. Scott, Matt and crew have been meeting this year and exploring missional community. Now it […]

Mrs Citizen of the year has taken off for the day running a scrapbooking workshop, so I am left home with the two delightful children.

Yes… I was being a little sarcastic.
We’ve been to MacDonalds for breakfast and the local RAAFA fete and now they are watching a video. I have just broken up a […]

Yesterday was the annual Brighton Celebration Day and my lovely wife received her award for being ‘Citizen of the Year’.
Couldn’t think of a better winner!
Thanks to those very special friends round here who have seen what Danelle does and appreciated it. She is an amazing woman and rarely if ever recognised. I know it genuinely […]

I am reading The Divine Conspiracy for the fourth time.
Its not that I enjoyed it so much the first three - but rather that I never got past the first 50 pages each time. I just couldn’t get what he was on about. I would read… read…. daydream… daydream… and then give up. I came […]

My old kiwi friend is recommending a Bible developed by a distant relative. He reckons its a ‘kick ass Bible’!
Here’s some stuff about the it
“The NET BIBLE is the first modern Bible to:
The first to be completely free for you to download completely (download the whole Bible and 60,932 notes)
The first to offer you a […]

My wife is a legend and the Aussie football team have made it to the world cup!

Woohoo! Its true.
What a fantastic surprise!
Danelle got a phone call this afternoon from the local community development crew advising her that a bunch of people had nominated her for the Citizen of The Year award (unbeknownst to her) and that she had won. Of course she didn’t even know she had been nominated, but it […]

Someone told me recently that they would like to see a ‘clearly articulated 5 year vision’ for our adventure here in Brighton.
So would I.
But it aint gonna happen.
A 5 year plan assumes we know what will happen over the next 5 years and that we can do stuff to fit in with the developments in […]

I walked into my study to check email.
Looked out the window and there are kids all over our front lawn - ‘fielding’. On the driveway across the street is a batsman and set of stumps. We are approximately ‘long on’.
I hear them running in and out of my garage to get their balls. I have […]

Ok - last post for today!
Lately in our education system we have heard a lot of talk about ‘competency based’ courses where the goal is to be able to ‘do something’ ie. achieve an outcome.
What would competency based discipleship look like?
And if there was a test would we ‘pass’?
Maybe I am declaring that I am […]

Duncan has written a very useful summary of Fowler’s stages of faith and has made some comments on how they relate to churches, based on Alan Jamieson’s work on ‘Churchless Faith. I have italicised Duncan’s stuff and the made a few comments below.
To explain what he means by growth in faith Alan draws on the […]

“Jesus’ life and teachings particularly the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, and the Sermon on the Plain in Luke, are normative for a follower’s lifestyle (or ethics) when empowered by the Holy Spirit. I don’t believe Jesus teaches unrealistic ideals or that Jesus teaches legalistic must do’s. Rather Jesus invites us, and the Holy […]

Yesterday I hit the water for the first time in 5 weeks - way too long.
1. The weather was perfect - 23 degrees and offshore
2. I had scheduled a day off - no work… and…
3. Well… the only problem was that everyone else was working… so I had to go alone.
2 out of 3 aint […]

Ok - its sounds like an ad in the personals, but its not!
This is for those in the UK and or US/Canada.
I am interested in seeing what is happening around the world in places where people are genuinely asking questions about what it means to do mission and church in new ways. I am […]

I love it when small ideas germinate and translate into action!
This morning we had another brunch with 5 or 6 local neighbourhood families who we have become good friends with. I invited my friend Steve McKinnon along to talk about what TEAR do in helping the poorest of the poor in developing countries and to […]

This is the name of a blog that deals in the whole area of church advertising / images etc. As much as we are not out to do much in the way of promo / advertising, I do still believe its important to have something to put on a letterhead.
As you would know I have […]