Pharisee and Republican Retold

Emergent Hipster – “I thank you. Lord, that I am not like this traditionalist: stiff, irrelevant, uncool, a real Gen-Xer, not. I practice authenticity by coordinating my fashion with my spirituality. I only act virtuous when I feel like it; there’s nothing worse than hypocrisy. I look, speak, act and think like the rest of…

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FutureChurch Extended Life

FutureChurch NZ has been going for ages, as a project of the Women’s Resource Centre in Auckland, through a contract funded from the Methodist Church. Although the Methodists are pulling out, the site will continue under the leadership of Emergent Kiwis Steve and Lynn Taylor.

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What Would McLaren Do Different?

“It was also intended to put the book [Generous Orthodoxy] more in the personal, confessional genre of, say, Annie LaMott’s Traveling Mercies or Plan B (though I am not a fragment of the writer she is). But in spite of the subtitle, I fear that the title as it stands seems to promise something the…

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50,000 expected at Summit

More than 50,000 leaders and emerging leaders across North America are expected to meet at locations around USA for The Leadership Summit 2005, an annual gathering of church and business leaders. Starts today – Satellite locations here. HT: US NewsWire. If any bloggers are there, let me know

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My Cousin Genevieve

My cousin Genevieve McGough has a food column in New Zealand and web site called GenevievesCuisine.com. We used to have Christmases together growing up but I left NZ at 17 and have only seen her once since then. Great to see her on the web. I wonder if she will accept my crepe recipe?

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Dangerous Stories

Alan Hirsch has a new book coming out called Dangerous Stories, in which he brings insights from the Chinese House Church movement into the wider emerging missional church conversation. This is interesting – I have also had good conversations with both Chinese young people and also missionaries like David Garrison, who are describing the movements…

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Blogging and Internet Upgrades

Happy Days around here. ADSL broadband has finally come to the little town of Stromness – its been a whole year since our computers screamed with 2MG downloads, and they are very happy. My kids are happy. Even our cat Bubbles is happy. Also, typepad.com has double its bandwidth allowance (i was going over each…

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Doxology – My Chapter

Yesterday I wrote a chapter for a book that will come out in a few months. The book will accompany an arts exhibition called Doxology, featuring large scale enamel pieces by Rob Pepper on the life of Jesus. I was assigned this image of the women at the well and Debbie will add to my…

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Emerging Church Stuff

– CT: Reformed Protestants No Longer See Images as Idolatrous. – BackyardMissionary: incarnational-v-attractional-mission – ComplexChrist: Thoughts on Carson (+ SiJohnston) – Next-Wave: On Emergent – TheVoiz: Study on the American Emerging Church

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Studio 8

Studio 8 “the biggest software release in the history of Macromedia.” which BTW has a killer new website – looks like Hillman Curtis is up to his old tricks again on that flash header. [let me just check . . . doesn’t say on his site . . . anyone know who designed it?] I…

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Athanasius and Blogging

“Let this observation be a safeguard against sinning: let us each note and write down our actions and impulses of the soul as though we were to report them to each other” Athanasius Foucault’s article Self Writing critiques the Vita Antoni of Athanasius, written in the 4th Century as a guide for monks who were…

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18 Years of Marriage

Anniversary! Debbie and I have been married 18 years. The big day was August 8, 1987, at First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton. And the Groom looked dazzling . . . I mean the Bride. This is our first anniversary away from each other – Debbie left yesterday to pick up our daughter Elizabeth from…

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Bartha on Technology

“This is the crux: When a 14-year old hacks Netscape and at 19 releases Firefox which gets downloaded a million times the first day; when a bored teen sings “Dragostea Din Tea” by the Romanian pop band “O-Zone” into his web cam and gets downloaded over a million times … emerging church leaders need to…

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Barna changes strategy

Change of Perspective for George Barna after 20 years. “Starting in 2005, these [BarnaBooks] branded books will reveal what is happening in the emerging Church – not the postmodern, candles/coffee/couches types of anti-modern ministries, but the Revolutionary ministry that is percolating to the surface of American society through new forms of ministry such as the…

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How James MacDonald Can Avoid Being Emerging

Me right now? Its Sunday afternoon and I am just chillin’ after church. A few pizzas are in the oven and the weather is fine. I read James MacDonald’s article again this morning . . . the one entitled “Why I’m Not Emerging: A Brief Response to the Emergent Church“, located in the COOL STUFF…

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More on Fire From the North

The strategic prayer conference in Shetland Islands is still going and I just heard that things are shifting into gear. We left early but some of the Orkney folk are still there, including Miriam. – Great to see the prophets and apostles working together. – Great to see some old friends and acquaintances – Patrick…

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Sending off my Wife

Sounds harsh, but she asked for it. So I sent her off. We sent off a few friends and pilgrims this morning, and my wife (thats Debbie on the left) was one of them. So was my daughter Abigail. They are on the ferry right now and are on their way down to London and…

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Fire From The North

Back from the conference in Shetland Islands late last night. It was a great time. There were over 300 people from all over Europe, and I would guess all of them were there because they felt God wanted them there and flying to Shetland Islands [which is not very convenient] was an act of obedience.…

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Blogosphere Doubling every 5.5 months

State of the Blogosphere: – The blogosphere continues to double about every 5.5 months – A new blog is created about every second. If you will be at Greenbelt Festival this month, I will be speaking on “The Spirituality of Blogging.”

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Furlough in USA

We are planning to return to USA for 6 weeks. Sep 27 – November 7 It has been 5 and a half years since we left USA to come to Europe and we need to reconnect, give reports, obtain the right visas for reentry into Europe, and ask for some support for the future. The…

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