backyardmissionary

I was given a copy of Under the Unpredictable Plant - an Exploration in Vocational Holiness as a Christmas present and read it over the weekend. I haven’t read many Petersen books and often found him on a different page to myself in many regards.
This book I enjoyed on many levels. It is not a […]

In March Steve Timmis is coming to Perth. I have never met Steve, but as I read this article I feel a strong resonance with the vibe of what he is doing. It sounds quite a bit like us!
I’ll post dates of where he’ll be and what he’ll be doing up here soon.

I am 41.
That is not young, and by today’s standards I should have at least around 40 decent years left.
I am also a bit obsessive about fitness (I would say ‘health’ but my diet betrays me on that one!) however over the last few years my body has been falling apart.
As a result of some […]

The monthly WA Baptist newspaper came out this week. Sarah Green does a great job compiling a newspaper that is actually interesting and well worth reading.
This month’s has a great story on Marisa one of our new Forge interns as well as an article on blogging.
If you’d like to enter the wide weird world of […]

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of preaching around the place with quite a bit more to come.
Strangely enough, the last few times I have been to church have left me feeling like I am missing something in my own experience at the moment. I have very much enjoyed being involved with the three churches […]

I woke this morning and realised I don’t want to buy into someone else’s argument like I did yesterday with the Driscoll / McClaren post.
While I am happy to give my opinion, (and still find the whole censorship thing absurd) I found myself actually enjoying the biffo more than I should. A bit sick I […]

Well here we go…
I will risk an all out assault from the fundy fringe by asking the question, is the Jonah story a legitimate historical account or is it allegorical in nature, or are there other options? You are not allowed to answer with ‘does it matter?’!
We are about to explore it in our […]

I find this funny.

A few momths back I started a looking back series and then got distracted. It continues here…
I was 26 when I started in youth ministry at Scarborough Baptist Church, my home church, a place where I stayed another 5 years.
In the second year of youth min I also took up a job teaching at […]

Woohoo

I wouldn’t describe myself as the most patient man in the world, but I can put up with a fair bit of nonsense before getting narked.
However one bunch of people I simply cannot abide , are those so called ‘friends’ who call to show me a ‘business plan’, a great way of becoming financially independent. […]

I began wondering last night how life would be without email.
I began wondering what it would be like to choose to go a month of normal life without access to email except for business/bulk mail-outs. Could I do it?…
Email is easy, convenient and accessible. It is great for conveying information quickly and simply. But it […]

…that clear sense that something is on the move - that there is energy and direction and enthusiasm…
I get the impression that there is substantial momentum building for us as a team. There is a great vibe, a sense of common purpose amongst us and we are all enjoying the friendships we have made in […]

Coming up on Feb 18/19 is the annual Quinns Rock Healing Festival which we were part of last year and will be part of again this year.
It was a real hoot last year being in the middle of all that was taking place and being able to pray for people’s complete healing.
You can read here […]

All day offshores…
Sounds like surfing weather doesn’t it?!
I left home at 9.00 and headed for The Spot at Yanchep, somehow thinking it might be a fun thing to do. When I arrived there were around 40 guys in the water, a clean head high swell and many others streaming out. I stood there for 10 […]

Come April there will be 5 churches in Brighton, 3 existing and 2 relatively new ones.
It began with the Anglicans who got up and running fairly early in the piece. We were next to move in and then Beachside community Church (Pentecostal) started about 7 months ago. Now there are two other Pentecostal flavours […]

Mark Driscoll writes that Ravi Zacharias is concerned that the emerging church is a breeding ground for heresy.
It will be interesting to see what he has to say.
I would fairly confidently say that both this and the next generation of Christians are nowhere near as biblically literate as their parents and definitely run that risk. […]

Gotta be crazy to try this!

Guy Kawasaki offers some interesting advice on how to be an evangelist. (From Addison Rd)
Here is the intro to the article…
Out of curiosity, I went to SimplyHired, a vertical search engine for jobs, and looked for openings containing the keyword “evangelist.” Amazingly, there were 611 matches–and none were for churches. It seems that “evangelist” is […]

Is getting a phone call from Phil Baker while drinking coffee in the local McCafe after making this post!
I think I can safely say I am not a coffee snob.