Last week I had a sick day in bed but the latest Tom Wright book made it a good day. How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels by N.T. Wright. It’s a good read, as all his books are. Wright tackles the problem of the missing gap in the creeds between the virgin…
Read MoreOvercharged by Shipping Company
From Jonesberries: Has anyone else had this problem? Hoegh Autoliners was the shipping company that we used to get our camper van to New Zealand. The original quote from Sefco was US 4.798, which we paid on the 12 May, 2012. All went well. Our camper made it on the boat and sailed for New…
Read MoreWorld’s Best Christian Blogs
Here is a list of The World’s Best Christian Blogs from Chris Hall of TheGlobalChurch and the Baptist Union of Great Britain. Chris also edits The Baptist Times Daily News Sweep. Thanks Chris for including my humble blog. Here is the list with Chris’s comments. World’s Best Christian Blogs: Be the Light – Chris Duffett is an…
Read MoreBlogiversary: 11 years today.
My blog is 11 years old today. Thanks to everyone for following and being a big part of my life. This is where I am staying right now with my family. This is our yurt at a monastery in New Zealand. There is a wifi signal that covers the area but I don’t seem to…
Read MoreTim Tams, Steel and Aquaponics
Enjoying a weekend in the Sydney area. – NZ time in my body so I am up early. – Troy Bronsink is streaming his “Songs to Pray By” all weekend long. Good stuff. Sounds a bit like Mumford and Sons. – Vatican Leaks: Apparently THE BUTLER did it! – Looking at Wild Goose Festival opening on…
Read MoreAustralia
This weekend I will be in Shellharbour, just south of Sydney. Thanks to Brian Pember and a small network of Baptist churches who are bringing me over for some chat, reflection, discussion etc about the future of the church in Australia and beyond. Should be good. I think they have invited other churches to join…
Read MoreOn holiday. No posts. But plz. watch my video
Finally, I have got my family away for a few days holiday. We are close to the beach at a friends bach (shack) which happens to be much bigger than our yurt and quite nice. We haven’t got away all year, not even for a weekend, which is crazy because summer came and went here…
Read More‘Mighty to Save’ and other worship songs that annoy me
Sorry if I sound grumpy today. It might be my age. I am not usually a huge fan of contemporary worship songs. I don’t like extended chorus singing. This is the stuff of nightmares for me. I can pull off a few tunes with everyone else but then my mind wanders. Sometimes I sit down on…
Read MoreGoodbye Sister Donna
Saddened to hear of the passing of Donna Summer. I enjoyed her songs on the disco floors in the 70’s and after that embarrassing period of flared jeans and polyester, I enjoyed hearing of her new life and how her connection with God gave meaning and purpose. Like Whitney Houston and many other singers, she…
Read MoreBaptist monks and couch-surfing apostles: 10 Signs that the future church is here already.
10 years ago today I published an article on Soularize that suggested the church still had a long way to go before it was hitting its target but that there were early signs that prove hopeful and promising. Reading the article [Postmodern Church: Are We There Yet?] again today, it seems a lot of those…
Read MoreBishop-elect rocks the national paper.
The NZ Herald is the country’s leading newspaper so we were holding our breath to see what this weekend’s spread would say. Not to worry. In the interview with with our fearless leader Justin Duckworth, who is getting promoted to Bishop of Wellington, Catherine Masters of the NZ Herald does a FABULOUS job of capturing…
Read MoreOur home on television
Check this TV news special out. See the monastery we are living at as well as my wife and one of my daughters who appears ON TV! How exciting for TJ (10) to be on the telly. All of this big fuss of course because one of the members of our community, Justin, got himself a…
Read MoreResonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences
So yesterday we went through Part One of Duarte’s 2Day VisualStory training. There were about 30 of us in the training room at Duarte in Mountain View, sitting at tables, being led through a journey of storytelling ins and outs by our capable and amiable expedition leader named Kevin. Nancy Duarte was there at the…
Read MoreVisualStory training at Duarte
I am wasting a few hours at Sydney airport before boarding a plane a plane for San Francisco. I just downloaded Nancy Duarte’s book Resonate which some are saying is the first interactive business book created for iPad using iBooks Author – something that I am keen to do also one day. Oopppps! Forgot to…
Read MoreAnyone have an extra DSLR?
I need a camera. My blog has suffered ever since my camera was stolen [by Christians, no less] in Cairo last year. I have a little money to buy one. Does anyone in USA want to sell me their old Canon or Nikon DSLR? Let me know. I will be in San Francisco all next…
Read MoreSan Francisco next week, but not Seattle
I will be in San Francisco for most of next week. I LOVE this city. Three of my children were born here. Working among alt. youth and street kids in the Haight Ashbury was the turning point in our ministry. It will be great to be back. I will be a part of a visual…
Read MoreFinding your inner monk
You are never too young to be a monk. We have been enjoying this weekend with a bunch of young people (16 – 25) from around New Zealand who are part of the Order of St Stephen (OSS). Nice people. Mostly Anglicans, maybe all of them Anglicans, probably due to the re-launching of this monastic Order…
Read MoreThomas Kinkade gone
I heard that Thomas Kinkade passed away suddenly at age 54. Although he might have been “America’s most collected living artist”, his paintings never appealed to me. However, my son Samuel loved them as a child and I think his first Bible had Thomas Kinkade paintings all through it. I didn’t say I thought they…
Read MoreCentral Easter Camp
Today a team from Ngatiawa headed over to the Central Easter Camp a little north of Wellington. About 1000 teenagers camping out and journeying through the Easter weekend together. Mostly Baptists but this year some Anglican youth groups are joining in and the Ngatiawa contemporary monastery, where we are staying, have been invited to lead some…
Read MoreBack home again
Just got home last night after a whirlwind journey through 6 countries – Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria and Germany. I will put down some thoughts soon but I am looking forward to a bit of rest right now and also need to build a floor for our yurt because the weather is getting colder.…
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