backyardmissionary

For those who aren’t likely to read the whole story here’s a quick snapshot of what has prompted me to start writing this.
As I was talking with a friend the other night I said:
‘At the moment I feel like a guy who spends a lot of his life trying to start a fire with two […]

My friend & ex co-pastor, Steve Smith is the man I affectionately refer to as the ‘pope’, our denominational leader who is retiring at the end of the year.
Today the news is out that after a long search the new man recommended for the job is Mark Wilson of Whitford Church of Christ.
In true […]

A few weeks back at our Forge intensive I was listening to Deb Hirsch tell the story of how she and her friends from the punk/gay/druggie scene were all involved in a wild move of God amongst their community.
After taking the family Bible to a stint in prison, ‘George’ the local drug dealer came […]

Ellie needs some dental work… a filling…
How much should a filling cost?
Well, at a normal dentist about a hundred bucks. But she has been to a normal dentist and because she is young and a bit freaked it didn’t go as planned.
He told us we need to go to a specialist. ‘It’ll cost around $2000.00-2500.00′
‘For […]

Roo beat me to the post on this one.
After the various discussions about conferences around the place we are soon to be hit with the Willow Creek Leadership Summit, but in what can only be described as the most absurd rip off I have come across (since last year’s WCA summit) these guys are going […]

I was teaching on Tuesday night at the Baptist Theological College about Youth & Culture.
I would have to say that at 42 years old I am somewhat out of touch with the current surface issues in youth culture, but as I prepared I felt what was most important was to look at the deeper cultural […]

Over the next couple of weeks I will be facilitating an .acom class on Culture & Mission, one of my favourite topics.
The text for the class is Church Without Walls, a 1992 publication by an American who served as a missionary in Brazil.
Its one of the simplest books I have read on why missiology should […]

Each day when I walk past Kailis Fish market they are advertising ‘Albany garfish’, or ‘Denmark whiting’, or ‘Kalbarri snapper’, or ‘Shark Bay red emperor’.
You get the idea.
Maybe I’m ignorant, but does the place where a fish is caught make any difference at all to what it tastes like?…

Darryn’s mob in Tassie have been at it producing naughty T Shirts to raise money for local community development work.
If you’d like one then there’s an order form here

Last week I went to the 2Inspire conference down at Lake Joondalup Baptist Church. It was officially run as a combined denominational initiative (Baptist / Church of Christ) although in reality Whitford Church did the bulk of the work and probably own it more than anyone.
At the new Church of Christ blog Barry Austin (CEO […]

I’m pretty impressed with Flock as a web browser.
Firefox didn’t seem to have much that explorer couldn’t provide, but Flock is nice…
Moving home…

Tonight at our Upstream meeting it was my turn to teach the kids some stuff.
Its not something I do all that often, but it is one of those things I try to do to occasionally. Last week Simmo had us looking at the creation story and as I sat pondering ‘where to’ I felt it […]

Some great insights on spiritual formation from the CT blog.

One of these days I will update my blogroll and add all those people I have recently discovered and enjoy reading, as well as those old friends who have been around a while.
Until then…

We have 12 houses in our little street and 28 kids ages 13 and younger!
Is it any wonder its a tad noisy round here during school holidays?…

There is a great vibe though and they all get on really well. The pic is of 5 year old ‘T’ climbing a lamp-post during one of our street […]

This question came via email from a mate. I asked if I could throw it up on here to get some input. So wise people in blogland… offer your insights!
My own thoughts are below the questions…
What you think a group of 200 people doing a missional incarnate movement would look like?
What values they would have?
What […]

I’ve read a couple of books lately that are worth a mention.

Call to Commitment by Elisabeth O’Connor was written in 1963 and documents the story of Church of the Saviour in Washington DC. These were a mob of people who were well ahead of their time when it came to dreaming about how the church […]

I am sooo very tired of reading many inaccurate critiques of this beast that is labelled ‘the emerging church’. And while its a tag that I don’t much care for (because of the associated vagaries) it is also a label that I find myself sitting under for better or worse.
So for those who feel […]

Ok Hirschy - this will make you laugh!
Alan and I often joke about my blokeiness and my absence of a ‘feminine side’. Well… its there… if you can find it!

Here are the results of a ‘personality test’ I did the other day when I was bored.

Why do we sometimes feel compelled to add a few extra-biblical rules to how we see discipleship?
Scot Mcknight has a great 5 part series on ‘zealotry’, and the putting of fences around the Bible, which he suggests is every bit as unbiblical as liberalism’s dispensing with biblical truth. As usual Scot makes a lot of […]