Baptists in the house

It’s been an interesting weekend with a Baptist theme . We enjoyed having Rodney MaCann here a few times. Rodney has been National Leader of the Baptists for most the past decade, and has recently handed over the reigns to Craig Vernall. Rodney’s son, The Venerable Stu, is on the Ngatiawa team, where he functions, among…

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As much as you need: An invitation to Kirchentag

I am about to accept an invitation to speak at Kirchentag which will happen in Hamburg next year. Every two years, 100,000 Protestants gather in a German city for this festival. In 2011 Kirchentag happened in Dresden and I had the privilege of being on a panel to talk about building and keeping relationships in…

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Blog banter on church leadership and fresh expressions

Up at 4am this morning. Interesting blog banter going on from 3 Brits: 1. Richard Passmore on Fresh Expressions “I think FE may actually hinder change in the longer term because of the gravitational pull of the institution and accompanying orthodoxy. I think we are already seeing dissenting voices being marginalised as FE spreads and…

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NO we are NOT living in a secluded commune!

How embarrassing! After all the news coverage we got last week, my friends and family now think I live in a COMMUNE! Yes, a flipping’ “commune”! When I was a kid in school at Orewa, one of our teachers was a bushy-bearded hippie who lived in a Puhoi commune. We thought that was weird. It…

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The Dreadlocked Barefooted Bishop of Wellington

Update: Watch the news on TV and read May 5 NZ Herald interview. Original: Some very exciting news. The papers are ablaze this weekend with the announcement that Justin Duckworth has been elected Bishop of Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city.  “The Anglican Church needs to be ”dusted off” and it believes a dreadlocked, barefooted priest is the man to do…

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Charles Colson Passes

“There’s much about the emerging movement that I applaud.” Charles Colson to Andrew Jones on Tallskinnykiwi. Charles Wendell “Chuck” Colson passed away today. It was good to see so many bloggers and Christian leaders speak well of his life and ministry for a few days before his death. I hope his family shared some of those compliments with…

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Archbishop Rowan Williams stepping down

Archbishop Rowan WIllams has announced that he will step down from his position by the end of December 2012 and that he has accepted the position of Master of Magdalene College at Cambridge. As I mentioned last September, Rowan Williams has been a huge source of encouragement and balanced wisdom for the fresh expressions movement,…

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Sisters, skin-color, and sustainability in church planting

Church planting is a man’s world, baby! The sisters have moved on to more holistic missional enterprise. Multi-ethnic churches are only part of the solution. Africa must move beyond a handout-mentality and embrace a more sustainable way of doing ministry if it is to be a global player in missions. Efrem Smith’s response to my…

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2012 Report: Emerging churches in deprived communities

Somebody say H.O.S.P.I.T.A.L.I.T.Y . . . “There were two messages about how the groups understood mission. First, mission meant an incarnational presence in the everyday life of the community. Second, mission meant engaging with residents to restore their capacity to act, to articulate needs and to seek to have those needs met. Hospitality was the…

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American church: Not dead yet

“Most of our churches are built around feeding consumers.” Mike Breen My English friend Mike Breen just wrote an article called “An Obituary for the American Church” in which he outlines 3 problems he believes could kill it: a culture of Celebrity, Consumerism and Competition. Well said. I agree with Mike and recommend reading his article. But…

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Pioneer Mission Leadership Training

Great news for training for Anglican ministry and ordination, especially young people working in pioneer urban situations. I have blogged about this a few times along the way because we have been supporting this process in a number of ways. Heres the news: CMS has been given the BIG THUMBS UP to train ordinands in…

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New Christian websites

2 new Christian websites are launching soon that you should know about: OpenChurch.com from USA (January) courtesy of Kent Shaffer. Christian.co.uk from UK (February). Everyone say hello to Ian Matthews. Both are open for Christian content, articles, blog posts, etc. Go check them out, join them and submit something before the crowds come. What other similar…

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The English church that went up a mountain but came down a hill

I have lived in USA for ten years and UK for five. In both countries I worked for the churches. They are different, the churches in USA and UK, something that became more evident this weekend after Mark Driscoll suggested the UK church was the poorer for not having any well-known teachers. Interview is here.…

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Guys in dresses preaching to grandmas

What does a sex-drenched society need most of all? Another book on sex, perhaps? Some preachers think so. In Texas, Ed and Lisa Young are promoting their new book on sex from the rooftop of their house as part of a Sexperiment. [Sounds like “Buy our book or we will do something you will regret!”] And…

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Practices of a new Jesus movement

  I visited a number of Asian countries in 2011 and was amazed at the dynamism and commitment of the young Jesus followers. One network, in a country that I will not mention, stuck out to me as an outstanding example. They have started almost a thousand new communities, many of them multiplying into the…

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Prophets of the New Order

Ngatiawa Community, a contemplative monastery of Urban Vision was featured last month in the Anglican publication Taonga. Justin Duckworth [pictured below] has a Youth For Christ past as well as a Baptist background but felt that the Baptists already had lots of good works going. The Anglicans, however, needed some encouragement. Thus the decision to…

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Worship in a minor key

It’s been about ten years since AlternativeWorship.org emerged. This is one of the projects we helped to fund and support and its great to see how it has been a resource to the alt. worship movement over the past decade. Although its pretty impossible to keep up with all the churches, or blogs, it’s still…

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European Church Planting Survey

Hey. If you are starting churches in Europe then we need your input. There is still time to get your information into a survey hosted by some friends of mine. Go here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/eurochurch IT’S ONLY 5 MINUTES OF YOUR TIME. COME ON!!! I noticed that most of the groups represented are European or American mission…

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How does your church rank on the Informality Scale?

How much does your church resemble the community around it? Contextuality is a hot issue. Pyromaniacs have posted a lot on engaging the culture over the past year. Emerging church folk have popped up on the other side to defend it. Even I had some response to John McArthur’s “Contextualization is a curse” rant. More importantly, there…

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