A couple of weeks ago I had a lovely dinner with someone I had never met before - a friend of a friend who is in Melbourne. We talked about many things but one of them really stood out to me.
She is visiting Melbourne for a month and we were reflecting on the way she had been invited into peoples lives. Now on this occasion some Christians as well as non-Christians had done quite well at inviting her to be part of what they were doing.
But we had a conversation about how often as Christians we are involved in so many things that actually we can't ask other people into - certainly not at a casual level like "I'm doing this on Tuesday night do you want to join me". Our lives are so often taken up with "closed" events.
I've been conscious of this for the last few years and trying to rearrange my life so that the majority of the things I do are "open" rather than "closed" things but it's good to be made particularly conscious of it again ... actually because of how much a non-Christian friend of this person has been welcoming
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Thursday, February 19, 2004
Saltiness
I heard a great talk the other day about us being the salt of the earth and the light of the world. And it's got me thinking lots about the implications of Jesus saying to us that we are the salt of the earth.
Salt is a preserving substance. So Jesus is saying (amongst other things) that we are preserving elements in the earth ... but the bit that really got me was how he goes on to say if salt loses it's saltiness how can it be made salty again. So if we lose our preserving nature - it's not saying how will the world be preserved but rather how will we be preserved.
So if we are not being the salt that we are, have been created to be, then we lose the saltiness that is our very essence.
Pretty huge implications really, I think
Salt is a preserving substance. So Jesus is saying (amongst other things) that we are preserving elements in the earth ... but the bit that really got me was how he goes on to say if salt loses it's saltiness how can it be made salty again. So if we lose our preserving nature - it's not saying how will the world be preserved but rather how will we be preserved.
So if we are not being the salt that we are, have been created to be, then we lose the saltiness that is our very essence.
Pretty huge implications really, I think
Monday, February 16, 2004
9.10am this morning
This is the kind of blog entry that Trish delights in, not my normal style - but as it was happening it occured to me that if it happened to Trish it would end up on her blog. So an entry dedicated to Trish!
At the office this morning I was making a co-worker a coffee. He had gone to get milk and as he came back, I asked him if he had sugar. He replied, "there's some there". I asked again, he looked at me strangely and said "yes we've got some". Once again, quite baffled really, I said "no do you have suger". He realised what I was meaning and we both proceeded to drink our coffee, milk with two sugars.
It was after all just after 9am on a Monday morning!
At the office this morning I was making a co-worker a coffee. He had gone to get milk and as he came back, I asked him if he had sugar. He replied, "there's some there". I asked again, he looked at me strangely and said "yes we've got some". Once again, quite baffled really, I said "no do you have suger". He realised what I was meaning and we both proceeded to drink our coffee, milk with two sugars.
It was after all just after 9am on a Monday morning!
Emerging Church thoughts
Some people have been doing much thinking over rcent weeks about what exactly the Emerging Church is. This discussion led Steve Taylor to do an A-Z of the Emerging Church.
Also Darren has been blogging every couple of days of a few of the key things he has learnt through Living Room. This is Part E - which has lesson 8 & 9 and from there you can get to the previous posts.
Also Darren has been blogging every couple of days of a few of the key things he has learnt through Living Room. This is Part E - which has lesson 8 & 9 and from there you can get to the previous posts.
Thursday, February 12, 2004
Generations
How much is the stuff that many of us talk about a Gen X thing? That has been one of the questions that I have been asking recently.
Over the last six months or so I have been thinking about how I so easily think of "millenials" (or whatever you want to call those born from about 1980 onwards) as having the same characteristics as my age group - and that is so not a correct assumption. Both generations hate to be lumped all together ... but there are some key things that define us. I've been helped in my thinking about this at a couple of conferences/talks I've been too where Fuzz Kitto and Mark Sayers respectively have talked about generations including "Millenials". And been quite embarrassed as I've realised just how much I haven't considered the difference (the sociologist part of me squirms to admit such a thing!).
There are plenty of things written about the various differences but one thing that I wonder about is whether much of what many see as some of the characteristics of the "Emerging Church" (for want of a different name - definately wanting to avoid the current debate about that name) - are they characteristics of an incarnational church for Gen X but maybe not actually characteristics of what an incarnational church might look like for Millenials? Certainly the "missional impulse" would be the same but maybe some things like the liquidity would look different.
Pondering and unsure.
How much is the stuff that many of us talk about a Gen X thing? That has been one of the questions that I have been asking recently.
Over the last six months or so I have been thinking about how I so easily think of "millenials" (or whatever you want to call those born from about 1980 onwards) as having the same characteristics as my age group - and that is so not a correct assumption. Both generations hate to be lumped all together ... but there are some key things that define us. I've been helped in my thinking about this at a couple of conferences/talks I've been too where Fuzz Kitto and Mark Sayers respectively have talked about generations including "Millenials". And been quite embarrassed as I've realised just how much I haven't considered the difference (the sociologist part of me squirms to admit such a thing!).
There are plenty of things written about the various differences but one thing that I wonder about is whether much of what many see as some of the characteristics of the "Emerging Church" (for want of a different name - definately wanting to avoid the current debate about that name) - are they characteristics of an incarnational church for Gen X but maybe not actually characteristics of what an incarnational church might look like for Millenials? Certainly the "missional impulse" would be the same but maybe some things like the liquidity would look different.
Pondering and unsure.
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Yet another link!
I am doing lots of thinking myself and there is much that I could write about at the moment - but others are doing some great writing too ... and I will eventually get to writing some of the many things in my brain.
But for now: yet another link -
There is a great entry by Andrew Hamilton in Perth about Loving Jesus and letting that overflow in our lives. One of the many things I'm thinking about lots at the moment.
I am doing lots of thinking myself and there is much that I could write about at the moment - but others are doing some great writing too ... and I will eventually get to writing some of the many things in my brain.
But for now: yet another link -
There is a great entry by Andrew Hamilton in Perth about Loving Jesus and letting that overflow in our lives. One of the many things I'm thinking about lots at the moment.
Monday, February 09, 2004
Some New Blogs on my Blog Roll
I've added a few links to others blogging about similar things, the person who writes Backyard Missionaries is based in Perth and those writing Signposts and Neurotribe are based in Melbourne. You might like to have a read of their blogs.
I've added a few links to others blogging about similar things, the person who writes Backyard Missionaries is based in Perth and those writing Signposts and Neurotribe are based in Melbourne. You might like to have a read of their blogs.
Corporate Mission
A while ago I blogged about my question of whether we should encourage people in "individual mission" or "corporate mission". It's something I've been doing lots of thinking about recently.
Darren has done a FAB job at putting how I think about it on his blog! Have a read.
A while ago I blogged about my question of whether we should encourage people in "individual mission" or "corporate mission". It's something I've been doing lots of thinking about recently.
Darren has done a FAB job at putting how I think about it on his blog! Have a read.
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
Great Article
Just read this great article by David Beales. It's a longish article - although worth a read - about the way their church plant in England has developed. But this paragragh directly relates to my post the other day:
"The paradigm shift is simple. Whereas in the church paradigm, church gives shape to mission, in the mission paradigm, mission gives shape to church. Much church planting is church cloning, springing out of the church paradigm. Take between 20 and 70 people out of an existing church and they'll usually plant a church which looks like the one from which they came."
He also talks about the "Heineken principle" - reaching out to those that others can't reach. Interesting!
Just read this great article by David Beales. It's a longish article - although worth a read - about the way their church plant in England has developed. But this paragragh directly relates to my post the other day:
"The paradigm shift is simple. Whereas in the church paradigm, church gives shape to mission, in the mission paradigm, mission gives shape to church. Much church planting is church cloning, springing out of the church paradigm. Take between 20 and 70 people out of an existing church and they'll usually plant a church which looks like the one from which they came."
He also talks about the "Heineken principle" - reaching out to those that others can't reach. Interesting!
Monday, February 02, 2004
Poem of my Day
I read a poem today that I love - I've read it many times but today it hit me in a new way. It's a poem by a poet I love called Faith by Studdert Kennedy. A friend of mine first recited it to me when she was learning it and then a guy from one of my communities who knew I was enjoying some of his poems found a book of his poems in a second bookshop and gave it to me!
But today these words struck me:
"I bet my life on Beauty, Truth, And Love, not abstract but incarnate Truth."
Beauty, Truth and Love - that certainly describes the God I know.
I read a poem today that I love - I've read it many times but today it hit me in a new way. It's a poem by a poet I love called Faith by Studdert Kennedy. A friend of mine first recited it to me when she was learning it and then a guy from one of my communities who knew I was enjoying some of his poems found a book of his poems in a second bookshop and gave it to me!
But today these words struck me:
"I bet my life on Beauty, Truth, And Love, not abstract but incarnate Truth."
Beauty, Truth and Love - that certainly describes the God I know.
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