Sermon application

To avoid legalism in sermon application, try to give three possible alternatives.

That's from Luke Tattersall who is trying to make me a better preacher.

The Library

It's only taken 3.8 weeks but I've finally made it to the Moore College library. This is much better than my first degree where it took me until halfway through second semester first year to discover there was a second level in the library where 97% of the books are held. Now that I think back, it did strike me as a bit odd that there weren't many books in there.

The library mission was to discover how long the Moore College Annual magazine Societas has been published. Every student at Moore has to join a committee that helps serve the student and local community, and I got the magazine. Attending an obscure smaller campus during my first university degree meant I had no sense of being in an institution steeped in history. That's certainly not the case at Moore, it turns out this is the 92nd year of Societas.

All in all I would class my first trip to the library as highly successful. I might even visit again soon.

Pondering...

Pondering the repercussions of putting a "NO JUNK MAIL" sign on my Moore College pigeonhole.

The Pile

You'll either find this list transfixing or tiresome.

As part of my application of the principles of GTD I've finally completed the sorting and categorising of 'The Pile'. 'The Pile' has slowly grown over the past 8 years and basically hung around as a permanent shadow over my existence. Until recently 'The Pile' occupied the bottom draw of my filing cabinet (5% sorted in vertical files, 95% in a pile). 'The Pile' consisted of notes from every topical sermon series, conference elective and student training night during my time at university and church since 2003. As the sorting process began about a month ago, when stacked neatly in a pile 'The Pile' stood about a 1/2 metre tall.

I know what you're thinking "Why didn't you just throw it all out?" A lot of it did go, but were I to simply chuck the pile I would actually be creating more work for myself by having to recapture and research the information contained within at some future date.

I don't know if listing all the categories contains any significance but I did think if you disregard a few categories specific to me serving in full-time ministry, perhaps the list demonstrates;

1. The doctrinal prejudice of those teaching me over this time (both what is and isn't included)

2. An indication of the type of ministry I've been involved during this time.

3. A snapshot of the emphasis and challenges of the past decade.

Please comment if you have any interesting observations.

Also if you don't know many specifics about the group I've been serving with during this time, what would you guess based purely on these categories?

Abortion

Advertising
Alcohol

Alternative Therapy

Apologetics

Atonement

Bible Reading

Bible Translation

Catholicism

Child Protection

Christmas

Church

Church and State

Church History

Commentary List

Conference Organisation

Contentment

Conversational Evangelism

Creationism

Depression

Discipline

Disability

Emotions

Ethics

Eschatology

Evaluation

Evangelicalism

Evangelism

Exegesis

Faith

Feminism

Follow-Up

Full-Time Ministry

God

Gospel Outline

Gossip

Grace

Growth Groups

Guidance

Guilt

Health

Hermeneutics

Holy Spirit

Homosexuality

Hospitality

Ideas

Islam

Justification by Faith

Leaders

Leading Meetings

Lord's Supper

Marriage

Mission

Money

MTS Program

Music

New Perspective

One to One

Parenting

Philosophy

Pluralism

Prayer

Preaching

Reading Lists

Reading Luke's Gospel Course

Relationships

Religions

Reproduction

Rest

Resurrection

Sin

Science

Scripture

Serving

Sex

Social Justice

Sovereignty

Suffering

Support Raising

Temple

Testimony

Thankfulness

Tracts

Time

Vegetarianism

Website

Welcoming

Women's ministry

Words

Work

What would be different if this were a list from 1993-2000?

Oh, and here's the finished work of art.

Preaching for an audience of one

They say you should preach for an audience of one; your wife, I mean God. Actually, I've never heard anyone say "you should only preach for an audience of one; God", but it sounds like it should be a saying. Anyways I've found a second target - the kid who played his Nintendo DS for the first half of the sermon this week until his Dad made him turn it off. I want that kid to be engaged with the sermon and love hearing about Jesus at church.

Fair bit of nonsense on this blog of late

But I'm confident the overall tone will improve when I catch up on some sleep.

When people design conference booklets

Dear Graphic Designers,
Firstly thank you for your humble service to aesthetics and your many hours of unpaid work for the sake of the Christian church.

Just a small quibble if I may. On behalf of notetakers everywhere may I humbly suggest when designing booklets for Christian conferences with multiple speakers that;
a. The outlines are ordered by speaker rather than chronologically.
b. There is at least one page gap (put an ad in or something) between each speaker so that notes from separate preachers don't back onto each other.

This will ensure that when at a later date the aforementioned notetakers wish to separate notes to be categorised by book of the Bible, the desired result can be achieved with a minimum of fuss.

Kind Regards,

Izaac Cowling.

The face of Moore College

The ugly face of prejudice rears it's head again.

I lamented a few weeks ago that due to the diversity policy of Moore College advertising, the chances of having my face grace advertisements were slim. The reason is because I'm pretty much a generic Anglo male who let's face it are a dime a dozen around college.

Some may have questioned if my observations were well-founded or perhaps an expression of an inferiority complex.

Look what I found on the home page of Moore.edu.au

Ryan doesn't count because he's South African.

It looks like my best chance is to grow a beard like Stu.

Raising spiritual issues in conversation

Some nuggets of gold from an old Beach Mission booklet I found;

Raising spiritual issues
Though we are all involved with different age groups, at different times in our program we will have opportunities to speak to adults about spiritual matters. For example there are the church services, family nights, visiting parents of the children you teach, parents who hang around the castle meeting etc.

OUR AIM IS TO START A CONVERSATION WHICH WILL GET THE PERSON TO FRANKLY EXPLORE THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

Here are some handy conversation starters:
"What do you think of this Christianity stuff?"
"Do you often come to Church?"
"What do you think about... ?" (point from the talk at church)

A set of three:
"Are you interested in Spiritual things?" (If answer is "No!" ask; "Why not?")(If answer is "Yes" continue.)
"How would you define a real Christian?"
"Would you mind if I showed you what the Bible says?"

"Would you consider yourself to be a real Christian or are you still on the way?"
"What made you decide to come along tonight?"
"Who do you think Jesus is?" (This may be useful with a rank outsider)
"Do you believe in life after death?" (This may be more suitable to an older person)
"Do you think humanity (the world) is getting worse?"
"I find I can't live up to my own moral standards - what about you?"

A set of two; (suitable for a person who is brushing aside a decision)
"What decision have you come to about Jesus?"
"On what basis have you come to this decision?"

A set of two;
"Have you reached the stage in your life where you are sure that if you died tonight you would go to be with Jesus in heaven?"
"If you died tonight, and stood before God and he should ask you; 'Why should I let you into heaven?', what would you say?"

Makes me think of those flowchart sheets that they give to telemarketers like this one.

From here
H/T Nathan

Friday 19th February 2010 - First Annual Guy Sebastian Spam Day

I swear I've never tried anything like this before.
I don't forward emails.
I don't type stupid chain Facebook messages.
I don't talk like a pirate on international talk like a pirate day.

But I want you to help me start something new.

Have you ever heard of Google alerts? No neither had I.

But this is both sad and fascinating; I discovered via the comments on this post that somewhere out there in the world of cyberspace, every time someone types the name "Guy Sebastian", a chain reaction is set off whereby computers whirr, algorithms crunch, and a Google Alert is sent to this person, letting them know someone out there is talking about Guy.

All you have to do is this.
1. Simply type the name "Guy Sebastian" somewhere randomly in a blogpost.

2. Link the words "Guy Sebastian" to this post so other people can join in, and

3. Wait for SoulFan to respond.

I swear it works. Look, Nathan tried it after me just a few days ago.

So there it is. Type Guy Sebastian at random in a post, link to here so others can share the fun and voila, even if they don't comment no doubt you've made Soulfan's day.

And to you Soulfan, I set the challenge; I bet you can't comment on everyone's blog who mentions Guy today!

The laws of thermodynamics and marriage

Last night Keith and Sarah Condie led a seminar on being married at Moore College. A few months ago I described Paul Grimmond as the kind of guy who nurse a sick kitten back to health. I am kind of upset I used this description on Paul, because it applies to Keith even more so. Keith's the kind of guy who would lose sleep over accidentally bumping into someone else's trolley at the supermarket. The kind of guy who would apologise in a restaurant if the waiter bought him the wrong meal, as if somehow he was the one that made the mistake in ordering the wrong item. The kind of guy who would upon accidentally killing a magpie with his car, attempt to find the nest of chicks and feed them by regurgitating worms into their beaks. I'm a big fan of Keith.

There were a number of really helpful matters of pastoral concern that Keith and Sarah added to the seminar. One example was before the encouragement to continually be generous with each other physically (1 Corinthians 7), Keith prefaced his comments by saying what he was about to say didn't apply to anyone with a history of abuse. These comments were reiterated again at the end with an encouragement that despite it being a sad and horrible thing to have suffered abuse, it was important to seek help as soon as possible. In marriage books/seminars/preaching I've heard lots of people tell Christians to make sure they have lots of s*x. But that was the first time I've witnessed such a pastorally aware disclaimer.

One highlight of the night for me came during the conclusion when under the dot point "Vigilance", Keith asked if anyone was aware of the second law of thermodynamics? One of the guys Simon put up his hand and said;

Isn't that the one where when two bodies come together they exchange heat?

Keith replied;

That wasn't what I was thinking, I thought it was the one where things move from order to disorder?

I preferred Simon's answer.

Turns out they were both right.

Celebrating #200 - Blog this

In celebrating reaching 200 posts I have so far examined;
#1 - Most read posts
#2 - Commenting highlights

#3 - Blog this
I have 37 blogs in Google Reader - many of which belong to people who regularly read and comment on this blog. Though I read much wider than my "Blog this" box would indicate, I have chosen to be particularly selective in those blogs which I provide links to in my sidebar. My selection process is based upon sentimentality, personal relationship, overall blog quality, frequency of posts, diversity of interests and wishing to maintain the value of recommendation through exclusivity.

I comment on the blogs of others when I have time, but I don't link to many posts instead hoping that the "Blog this" box encourages traffic to bloggers I especially value. As a consequence if you don't already, can I highly encourage you to read the following blogs.

St-Eutychus
I call Nathan the blogger on all things interesting (and more). I have known Nathan for many years and you can find my summary of our friendship told from both sides here. His was the first personal blog I ever read. Nathan's frequency of posts ensures whenever I come back from holiday Google Reader is well into triple figures.

Another Something
I have never met Simone but she blogs from the heart. I imagine that's why she's the only person to ever twice remove a comment after publication on my blog. Simone wrote the words to Never Alone which is Sarah's favourite song. I'm currently in a focus group for the next EMU congregational CD to which Simone and composer Phillip P have contributed three or so songs for assessment. I can't say too much but I offer that having a dedicated lyricist (rather than singer-songwriter) usually ensures lyrics that are less cliched.

Christian Reflections
Mikey has probably had more of an influence on me than he realises. Having introduced me to two of the significant driving forces behind my mornings in blogging and GTD, the only way he could have completely influenced my mornings was if he also introduced me to Sarah, Jesus and Weet-Bix. I met Mikey through an MTS trainers conference. I asked where I'd heard his name. He said maybe beacuse he blogged. I asked why he blogged. He encouraged me to have a go. Mikey writes really helpful and thought provoking content.

The Pixar Blog
I have a passion for Pixar movies. My favourite is The Incredibles. This is the better of the two blogs about Pixar I read because upcomingpixar.com occasionally goes a bit past appreciation to obsession.

Vanishing Point
Ben is hilarious. One day we will meet in person but until then I am enjoying getting to know him via his blog. I wish I could write as interestingly as Ben. He has regular segments such as a semi-weekly quiz which is good fun and Thursday Peanuts cartoons. He is also a very talented artist and painter - his painting of the Babushka dolls I would proudly hang in my house, which is saying something because the only other art currently adorning our walls is from Sarah's beloved and skilled grandmother.

Gordon Cheng's Blog
Few people have the ability to say things that are at the one time deep, thought-provoking and hilarious. This talent only occasionally comes through on the blog - Gordo's natural element is in comments and letters to the editor. I also enjoy that Gordo makes fun of environmentalists in an intelligent way. We helped plant a church together. Sarah and I also enjoy babysitting his daughters; potentially the easiest babysitting gig in the country.

Simplici-tea
Sarah is my darling wife who I've recently taken to calling 'bro'. I think it's affectionate. My mates at college think it's patronising. Sarah loves Jesus first and me second. She encourages me to love her more by loving God better. Sarah writes about the more interesting part of my life which doesn't fit into the general vibe of my blog.

So there you have it. Blog this.

Celebrating #200 - Commenting Highlights

One of the biggest surprises in starting a blog in order to process my thoughts has been the reactions and comments that people have made in response. I have since discovered this unexpected process is otherwise known as blog-love.

Having recently hit 200 posts I am celebrating by crunching the numbers.

#1 - Most read posts

#2 - Commenting Highlights;

559 comments from 64 commenters.

31 people commented just once.

Most prolific;

196 comments - Izaac

80 comments - Nathan

47 comments - Kutz

36 comments - Simone

20 comments - Dave

19 comments - Gordon

17 comments - Mikey

16 comments - Ben

10 comments - Luke

10 comments - Dan

4 comments have been removed by the author after publication.

2 by Simone

1 by Kutz

1 by a crazy lady who wrote a stream of consciousness about how her husband and her were having marriage difficulties created by tensions over her having more followers on Twitter.

The mysterious commenter Acevedo Williams was uncovered as an alias for Matt.

After mentioning Guy Sebastian in a post, two of his fans swept by to offer their own thoughts on Guy and his fashion sense. I can only assume they are constantly googling his name to see what they can find.

My old friend Anonymous commented on a number of occasions taking up such diverse causes as;

> Supporting new wave spirituality

> Supporting the new perspective

> Attacking atheists

> Supporting atheists

My favourite comment was from AdamPastor who in response to this post wrote;

Greetings Izaac

On the subject of the Trinity,
I recommend this video:The Human Jesus

Take a couple of hours to watch it; and prayerfully it will aid you to reconsider "The Trinity"

Yours In Messiah
Adam Pastor

Thank you everyone who takes the time and effort to comment for making blogging so enjoyable.

Thank you also to the lurkers. You know who you are (because I certainly don't).

The people that wrote the Bible

Why couldn't they just speak English?

Youth ministry

Teenagers are like animals, they can smell your fear. Give me a class of primary school children, give me parents, give me seniors, give me a speaking gig to a crowd of 1000's, but give me teenagers and you've given me a death sentence. At least that was my thought as Sarah and I began youth ministry this year.

Thankfully our first couple of weeks have demonstrated things are never as bad as they appear. We even got some positive feedback from one of the parents who when asking their child what he thought of the new leaders replied "They're alright. They're not too Christian." The comment could be taken a number of ways but the parent saw it as a positive so I will too.

Another highlight came during the interview at church to introduce us to the congregation. We'd been lovingly given the questions beforehand to prepare our answers, but problems arose when Costa tried one off the cuff. "You're both bloggers. Why do you blog and what do you blog about?" So far so good, that was one of the prepared questions. "Sarah, your blog is called simplici-tea [Cue powerpoint slide, and unhelpfully leading question] - do you prefer teabags or pot?"

Sarah: "I've recently converted to pot."

[Cue uncontrolled sniggering building to full blown laughter from teenagers]

It'll take a long time to live that one down. As I said, they can smell your fear.

Celebrating #200 - Most read posts

This is my 201st post since joining the blogosphere in June 2009. To celebrate reaching 200 posts, over the next few days I will crunch a few numbers.

For those playing at home...

Most read posts
1. Chicken Little and the AUA
2. What I learnt from my visit to Hillsong
3. The Christian Brag-Shelf
4. Two Koorongs
5. From confrontation to conversation
6. A history of Cumberland Uni Church through chairs #1
7. A history of Cumberland Uni Church through chairs #3
8. A history of Cumberland Uni Church through chairs #2
9. Explaining Exodus
10. How many people do you need to plant a church?

Thank God I'm a country boy

Nestled on the banks of the mighty Clarence River surrounded by fields of sugar cane, Maclean has a population of about 3,500 people. I recently had the privilege of preaching back at my home church - Maclean Presbyterian - on the book of Joshua. My opening question was "What's so good about the land of Canaan?" It was an apt question to ask in the Clarence Valley. The Middle East is good, but it's no Brooms Head. When I was younger, every morning as we drove down the hill to school, my Dad (without fail) would make us look up from the road and out at the view across the valley at the rivers and farms and wooded hills and say "Some people pay millions of dollars for a view like that... and we get it every day for nothin'." He was right.

It is in Maclean that I grew up with country ministry apologist Nathan. We are both at Bible College this year in different cities and I have a hankering had we been studying five years ago we would be at the same college.

The other day I posted on city-centric ministry, which via Nathan has sparked off some helpful discussions. 

In response to Nathan's view of Sydney from Townsville (and now Brisbane) I counter;
1. The distribution of Moore College graduates is far and wide. The facts don't agree with the rhetoric. During our orientation at Moore we were challenged by Greg Anderson to set the record for overseas mission from our year - the record currently is 20% of a year heading into overseas ministry. As for leaving Sydney within Australia, it need not be stated because it happens already in large numbers.

2. The distribution of Moore College graduates serves Sydney the most. The college is in Sydney, the people most likely to attend are from Sydney, it is the training college for the Anglican Diocese in Sydney.

3. Moore is a local denominational college and its wider training is an act of gospel generosity. Moore is the training college for the Anglican Diocese in Sydney and I can't imagine has any particular obligation for training up others. I contend it is an act of generosity which trains people that have no intention of serving in Sydney nor in the Anglican Church.

4. Moore is a local denominational college which rightly seeks to keep the local denomination strong. Sydney remains the largest and most influential city in the country. The strength of straight down the line evangelicals in Sydney is often overestimated by both those outside and those within the diocese. It is important to protect the evangelical history of Sydney because the gospel is always under attack. Sending people always has a cost involved for the senders. That so many gospel workers have come from Sydney should be cause to keep investing here.

5. The idea that Moore is too Sydney focused is an unhelpful and largely inaccurate stereotype. This is the same stereotype which views the college as too intellectual, inadequate at preparing people for overseas mission and not a "preaching" college. I have chosen to attend Moore not as an Anglican candidate, but as an independent (I'm free as a bird) in order to explore more options of leaving Sydney. This has been encouraged by all the lecturing staff I have spoken to about this at the college.

6. The idea that Moore is too Sydney focused may soon be replaced by the view it is not Sydney focused enough. I have met more people in first year intending on leaving Sydney than I have met who are planning to stay. The city as influential may or may not be true - but there's an awful lot of people here we need to proclaim the gospel to with the hope that God will work to bring them to repent and believe the gospel.

7. Some people for the sake of the wider church go. It seems best to me to keep your strengths strong in order to best serve your weaknesses, but it is a mistake if no one leaves. It is only worthwhile keeping Sydney strong as long as people still go. The North Coast of NSW where I'm from has some great evangelical churches who have struggled for years to find a full-time gospel worker willing to come and serve with them.

8. Some people for the sake of the wider church stay. It is a mistake if too many leave. I don't think the balance is too bad at the moment, but depending on the season we will need to agitate on either side of the equation. There are times when people are comfortable in the city and need to be encouraged to leave. Othertimes the easy thing is to go but people will need to be encouraged to for the sake of the wider church to stay. My beloved co-worker in the gospel Tracey Gowing is from Kempsey. She has such a heart for the country. Her solution; though much harder to stay in Sydney she has spent the last 15 years helping to train up women and encourage men to serve Jesus throughout the world. Working at a health sciences campus has meant that just about any town in NSW that has a hospital has a graduate from the Sydney campus where Tracey laboured. Many of these health professionals are Christians encouraged by Tracey serve the country church.

9. We are dealing with individuals, not numbers. Because the church is the people, it's not an easy thing to say "Well, there's two churches in that area and we only need one so we'll just lift one up and move it to Bourke." It is a matter for individual circumstances to determine who stays and who goes.

However if it is currently a season where too many are staying in Sydney, forget everything I said and go.

3 Waves of World Mission

Someone needs to write a book on it. Someone other than me who likes that kind of thing. Have you noticed the way the strategic focus of world mission has changed over the last few decades? From villages to universities to theological training.

The past few weeks I have been slowly sorting and categorising the papers dumped in the bottom draw of my filing cabinet consisting of my notes and worksheets from every conference, training seminar, or topical elective I've attended over the past 8 years. For me one of the glaring blind spots in content was world mission. It's not that world mission wasn't on the agenda of the churches and groups I've been a part of; we've prayed for missionaries and had them visit on home assignment, but I don't feel a theology of the priority of the nations has ever been clearly taught to me. The topic has regularly arisen through systematic exegesis of the Bible, though usually with the application that most of us are the Gentiles to which the gospel has been brought, Australia is the end of the world, and the gospel is for everyone; Jew/Greek, Man/Woman, Rich/Poor, Coke lover/Pepsi lover, Mac users/PC users so go and talk to people you normally wouldn't about Jesus.

I would contend that those in positions of leadership over this time are in reality very supportive of world mission. I suppose I'm just comparing my circles to my impression of much of the US scene, where I hear often of rallies and articles and entire books devoted to the continued sending out to the nations. In the case of John Piper (provide appropriate quote) I kind of got the vibe he believes that Jesus can't return until every people group has heard the gospel. Without discussing the merits or otherwise of this position, I don't feel the teaching I have received has gone even close to pushing particularly the benefits of going places you can't get to by car. And to be clear that world mission was still a concern; the potential failure of developing a focused theological reason hasn't stopped many of those same people teaching me and those who heard the same teaching, from making the decision to go to the nations themselves.

Over the past couple of months as I've met a number of new missionary families heading overseas, I've been pondering the changing emphasis of a number of mission organisations.

1st Wave: Groundwork
There will always be pioneers who use their trade and business acumen to get into countries that are otherwise closed to Christians. Lot's of medical professionals are able to do this kind of work. Consequently, they are often simply being Christian as part of the community occasionally able to begin new gospel work and oftentimes supporting existing ministries.

2nd Wave: Strategic Influence
In countries where access is more freely available there has been a significant shift from this groundwork ministry. Almost certainly built on  the foundation laid by gospel pioneers, for a time the focus shifted to university campuses. It is strategic because of the disproportionate influence that people of this age can have in a country. These students are the ones who in time will be moving into positions of power and they have a whole lot of life ahead of them. University remains in many countries a time of life when individuals are particularly open to new ideas and thoughts, thus creating an opportunity for the gospel to be heard.

The focus on universities also reflects a shift of emphasis to send out those native to the country to do the work of evangelism, rather than the (usually Western) foreigner seeking to be the one in the greatest position of leadership. The very nature of university work means you invest for a short period of time, after which the individuals leave to be messengers of the gospel in a different context. The gospel though communicated by a foreigner is now in the hands of the locals, spread by locals to locals.

3rd Wave: Equipping via Theological Education
The latest change is also as a result of God's grace through the pioneers. In many cases it is also thanks to (reflected in university ministry) the shift of focus to locals being the main bearers of that gospel message after the initial saving work of Jesus through the foreign missionaries. But the phenomenal march of the gospel in many of these countries through the locals has meant that there are many Christians and Christian leaders with little to no training. This deficiency is being attempted to be rectified through the third wave of missionary emphasis turning to the equipping of the existing church leaders through theological education. We're sending well-trained foreigners to train well the local existing leadership, building on the work of the past.

Have you noticed the changing strategy?