» 2005 » September

The Australian newspaper reports that a consortium of Australian churches have hired and advertising firm to help them boost church attendances across the nation. Heading up the campaign is Angus Kinnaird of FutureBrand. He’s an atheist or, as he prefers, a non-believing humanist.

The church, the Bible and religion are kept out of the picture. [...]

I took an instant liking to Manfred Rusner when I met him. He’s relational, intense and committed to mission.

Manfred heads up church planting for the Evangeliska Frikyrkan. He is our key contact in bringing together four Swedish denominations that are committed to multiplying new churches. They’ve signed up for a two-year program with us called [...]

Greetings from Heathrow airport. Four hours into a 30 hour return journey from Stockholm to Melbourne.

Don’t feel sorry for me. The Apostle Paul faced shipwrecks and beatings. I get to sit back and watch movies while they bring me food.

Survived being an Aussie in London the week we lost the Ashes.

CRM UK is in great [...]

Tomorrow we begin a two day intensive on church planting movements with seven denominational teams from around Europe (four from Sweden). Love to have people praying for us. A good outcome is seven teams with a vision to fuel a church planting movement and the faith and determination to put a plan into action.

Will let [...]

Is your expression of church Mission Shaped or Mission Flavoured?

You can find out by reading Ken Morgan’s informative article below.

Good article by Canadian church planter, John Smed on prayer and church planting in the book of Acts.

Following the bad news about theological education, what would it look like to reinvent ministry training? There are at least seven things that could be done.

1. Begin with the end in mind
Read the gospels and rediscover Jesus’ model of leadership development. He integrated spiritual and character formation with ministry formation and theological [...]

Following up my post on Life on the Ark, here’s the bad news about theological education from a movements perspective.

1. You can’t learn to swim by reading a book
My grandfather taught my father to swim by rowing out to the middle of a river and tossing him overboard. He was smart enough [...]

I’m in London this week catching up with Ian and Verlie Hamilton of CRM UK.

Just read a press report on the decline of Christianity in Britain. It predicts that over the next three decades church going will plummet by two thirds. On current trends, by 2040 there will be nearly twice as many Muslims at [...]

Following my post on Encounter—Transformation—Mission, here’s a case study on the emergence of the Moravian missionary movement in the first half of the eighteenth century.
1. Dissonance
From childhood, Count Nikolaus Zinzendorf had been devoted to Christ and committed to the spread of Christianity throughout the world. In 1722, in his early twenties, he opened up his [...]