Memories ...

The words of an old hymn just popped into my head. Here they are ...

I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever,
I will sing, I will sing.
I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever,
I will sing of the mercies of the Lord.

With my mouth, will I make known
His faithfulness, His faithfulness.
With my mouth, will I make known
His faithfulness to all generations ...

God is soooooooooo good ...

My new shed/workshop/garage is going to start being erected today - yay!!! (Only been waiting since October)

Things are busy already at work - 2006 is going to be a fantastic year for our (God's) business, because He is blessing our efforts. Did He not say that He would cause us to prosper in everything that we do!

I am believing for many opportunities this year to preach and teach more. My desire is to get back involved in worship ministry, and to sow truth and life into every one that I meet or minister to.

I found someone who is going to possibly be able to fix all of our brick paving and limestone wall messes that we were left with. Another yay!!!

And I am married to the most wonderful woman on planet earth, who truly rocks my world.

And it's all because of God's promise to me - that He knows the plans that He has for me, and they are plans to prosper me and not to harm me. Plans to give me a hope and a future.

Where would I be without Him? Where would I be without Jesus and His finished work of the cross? Where would I be without His Holy Spirit?

Jesus nailed it when He said that only God is truly good. Only God could truly love me and bless me the way that He does.

Leadership in the relational church ...

Continuing on with the theme of life in the relational church, here are some more thoughts from Wayne Jacobsen ...

Clearly Jesus warned his disciples that in God’s reality leadership serves a different function than it does in the world because it is not based on management. Yet many books on Christian leadership today are so easily adapted to the business world. That alone should make us stop and question.

Jesus didn’t view leadership as the power to command, but the passion to serve people as they sort out what it means to live as God’s children. In the last decade my understanding of leadership has changed completely. I used to see it in terms of power—thinking leadership was defined by influence, institutional power or the value of their giftedness.

That’s not so in God. Those who have helped me most to grow in Father’s love, surprisingly enough, don’t hold positions of power but simply loved me enough to point out the way to God’s heart and then let me decide if I wanted to follow it...

I guess that it's true (when I think back) that the pastors/teachers who have influenced me the most over the past few years were all gracious, humble, and yet were not perfect!

It is also so true that we are all looking for the perfect church … which means something different to every person I know. The one thing “perfect church” seekers have in common is a desire to find a place of community where they can grow in Christ – a place where grace is the rule (we already have grace from God, but rarely receive it from man) – where we can exercise our gifts for the glory of God, and for the building up of His body.

I want to be in a church were the spiritually lost take priority over programs, buildings, and every other thing that gets in the way of being missional in the true sense of the word.

Why are churches spending tens of millions of dollars on flash buildings and other frivolous pursuits when children and women in Tanzania (I have been there and seen it with my own eyes) have to walk 10 kilometres or more to collect muddy disease infested drinking water from a well or creek?

My desire is to be Christ centred, Christ focussed, and as a result of that, to become more like Him. To act like He would act, to do what He would do, for His priorities to become my priorities, to rejoice when He rejoices, and to grieve when He grieves.

I feel like He is gently guiding me in the direction that He has planned for me – to make a difference in this world. To declare all of the awesome things that He has done for me, so that others can catch the vision.

And church can be a very good training ground …

Why house church isn't the answer ...

Found an interesting article by Wayne Jacobsen on the website "Lifestream.org" which has an excellent discussion on why "House Church" may not always be the answer people are looking for.

Here is a small excerpt ...

We've taught for years the mistaken notion that we need to go to church to fill up on the life of God. Not true! We can only fill up on God's life through a transforming relationship with the Father through his Son. We were never meant to come to fill ourselves with church, but to live full of him and then share his life together with God's people.

Here is the problem with most of what passes for church life today, including many house churches: Rather than teaching people how to live dependent on Jesus Christ, it supplants that dependency by its misguided attempt to take the place of Jesus in people's lives. Instead of teaching them how to live in him, they make them dependent on the structures and gatherings of what we call church. Our expressions of church life just become another thing to stand in the way of people living deeply and fully in him.

It's well written, and Wayne earnestly encourages people to centre their dependence on Jesus himself. Well worth taking the time to read in my opinion, as are many of the other articles on Lifestream.org website. Click here to read the full article.

Oh... and by the way, we recently left a mainstream Pentecostal church to join a brand new home church.

Let's get rid of the Pastor ...

Seems a bit radical doesn't it. But if this article from "Present Testimony Ministry" is anything to go on, if begs a thought or two.

Frank Viola has written a book called "Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices."

The article in question takes excerpts from this book and unpacks them in quite an orderly and well researched fashion. To say that he challenges the position of our modern church pastor is an understatement. Here are some excerpts from the article ...

The Pastor.

He is the fundamental figure of the Protestant faith. He is the chief, cook, and bottle-washer of today’s Christianity. So prevailing is the Pastor in the minds of most Christians that he is better known, more highly praised, and more heavily relied upon than Jesus Christ Himself!

Remove the Pastor and modern Christianity collapses. Remove the Pastor and virtually every Protestant church would be thrown into a panic. Remove the Pastor and Protestantism as we know it dies. The Pastor is the dominating focal point, mainstay, and centerpiece of the modern church. He is the embodiment of Protestant Christianity.

But here is the profound irony. There is not a single verse in the entire NT that supports the existence of the modern day Pastor! He simply did not exist in the early church.

Pretty much in your face for an opening statement, but I must admit, it did keep me reading right to the end of the article. The bluntness continues ...

The Pastor is in the Bible . . . Right?

The word “Pastors” does appear in the NT:

And he gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as PASTORS and teachers (Ephesians 4:11, NASB).

The following observations are to be made about this text.

* This is the only verse in the NT where the word “Pastor” is used. One solitary verse is a mighty scanty piece of evidence on which to hang the entire Protestant faith! In this regard, there is more Biblical authority for snake handling than there is for the modern Pastor. (Mark 16:18 and Acts 28:3-6 both mention handling snakes. So snake handling wins out two verses to one verse.)

* The word is used in the plural. It is “Pastors.” This is significant. For whoever these “Pastors” are, they are plural in the church, not singular. Consequently, there is no Biblical support for the practice of Sola Pastora (single Pastor).

* The Greek word translated “Pastors” is poimen. It means shepherds. (“Pastor” is the Latin word for shepherd.) “Pastor,” then, is a metaphor to describe a particular function in the church. It is not an office or a title. A first-century shepherd had nothing to do with the specialized and professional sense it has come to have in modern Christianity. Therefore, Ephesians 4:11 does not envision a pastoral office, but merely one of many functions in the church. Shepherds are those who naturally provide nurture and care for God’s sheep. It is a profound error, therefore, to confuse shepherds with an office or title as is commonly conceived today.

On the subject of ordination, here are Frank's views ...

The Fallacy of Ordination

In the fourth century, theology and ministry were the domain of the priests. Work and war were the domain of the laity. What was the rite of passage into the sacred realm of the priest? Ordination.

Before we examine the historical roots of ordination, let us look at how leadership was recognized in the early church. The apostolic workers (church planters) of the first century would revisit a church after a period of time. In some of those churches, the workers would publicly acknowledge elders. In every case, the elders were already “in place” before they were publicly endorsed.

Calvin and Luther apparently did their bit ...

From Priest to Pastor

John Calvin did not like the word “priest” to refer to ministers. He preferred the term “Pastor.” In Calvin’s mind, “Pastor” was the highest word one could use for ministry. He liked it because the Bible referred to Jesus Christ, “the great Shepherd of the sheep” (Heb. 13:20). Ironically, Calvin believed that he was restoring the NT bishop (episkopos) in the person of the Pastor!

Luther also did not like the word “priest” to define the new Protestant ministers. He wrote, “We neither can nor ought to give the name priest to those who are in charge of the Word and sacrament among the people. The reason they have been called priests is either because of the custom of the heathen people or as a vestige of the Jewish nation. The result is injurious to the church.” So he too adopted the terms “preacher,” “minister,” and “Pastor” to refer to this new office.

And my final snippet from Franks article/book is bound to raise the ire of most people ...

Now that we have unearthed the roots of the modern Pastor, let us shift our attention to the practical effects a Pastor has on the people of God.

The unscriptural clergy/laity distinction has done untold harm to the Body of Christ. It has ruptured the believing community into first and second-class Christians. The clergy/laity dichotomy perpetuates an awful falsehood. Namely, that some Christians are more privileged than others to serve the Lord.

Our ignorance of church history has allowed us to be robbed blind. The one-man ministry is entirely foreign to the NT, yet we embrace it while it suffocates our functioning. We are living stones, not dead ones. However, the pastoral office has transformed us into stones that do not breathe.

Permit me to get personal. The pastoral office has stolen your right to function as a member of Christ’s Body! It has shut your mouth and strapped you to a pew. It has distorted the reality of the Body, making the Pastor a giant mouth and transforming you into a tiny ear. It has rendered you a mute spectator who is proficient at taking sermon notes and passing an offering plate!

All in all, a pretty interesting read. And I thought I was being radical reading Mark Geppert's book - "Bridges: Getting from A to B" which seriously and convincingly challenges the pyramid shaped style of modern church hierarchical leadership. Sounds like I'm talking up the emergent/post modern church model doesn't it?

I'd be interested to hear your comments on Frank Viola's article, but I would ask one thing. Please read the article first!

Also, has anyone else read Mark Geppert's book "Bridges: getting from A to B"? Definitely worth the read in my opinion. I think it may be hard to get hold of here in Australia though, as it is published in Singapore.

Good stuff ...

One blog that I enjoy reading is His Method by Bruce Chant. Bruce has this uncanny knack of finding the most interesting links and articles.

One excellent gem he recently dug up was this post by Bob Kauflin on his blog "Worship Matters". You can read it here, or read Bruce's subsequent post on Bob's post here. (It's interesting that Bob's blog address is Worshipmatters.blogs.com and mine is Worshiprules.blogspot.com) So thanks Bruce for alerting me to Bob's excellent blog - I am sure that I will become a regular reader.

There's a link on this comment about backmasking which has a subsequent link to a website known as talkbackwards.com - this is a very interesting read. Brings back memories of the John Todd tapes we all listened to in the late '70s. Hmmm ... I think I still have my copies somewhere!!

Another goodie is the link Bruce has to Ed Stetzer, who is a church planter ... among other things. Bruce's post is here. The page that the link goes to is pretty ordinary, but at the bottom of the text are these words ... For fun, you could read a scathing critique of Dr. Stetzer here.

And so I did, and it was very interesting. It links to a site called "The Christian News and Views On-line Newsletter". It's an article about several aspects of the modern church, including "worship". Here is a sample line from that text ...

In the world of the church, promoters of "ancient-future" faith are making a splash with a theology of worship that blends early Christian practices with a postmodern culture.

Whilst I agree with some of the things the writer says, I found myself disagreeing with most of what he wrote in the complete article.

Here is another example of what the author says about "there's a new faith in town" man Ed Stetzer ...

He says that people want something mystical-magical-supernatural and spiritual. Too often, postmoderns feel they're meeting an alien culture when they encounter evangelical Christianity, Stetzer says. He says it’s not the job of the unchurched postmodern to enter our culture. It is our job to invade theirs. In other words, the lost in sin should not be expected to make a “change”, it is the job of the church to “change” and CHANGE it is doing.

Stetzer says that churches should worship “experientially”, while Christ says we are to worship God in spirit and in truth. (John 4:23) The Nehemiah Project church-planting center at “Southern Baptist Seminary” in Louisville, Ky. says, “postmoderns want to “experience” God. They want to FEEL God. They want to MEET God on familiar, informal, personal, relaxed terms. BUT, the Bible teachers that people are to FEAR God.

Dunno about the magical/mystery thingy, but the supernatural and spiritual is a given when God is involved in Church by His Spirit.

The article raises lots of issues about worship such as drama, dancing in church (worship dancing??), banners, pageantry, and reciting creeds, etc.

I have my own ideas about these things, and I am what most people would call traditional in this respect (if there is such a thing as traditional post modern). Having been involved in using some powerful YWAM dramas during missions outreaches in Thailand, I have seen the Holy Spirit mightily annoint these dramas with amazing results. They never cease to impact me, and I have seen some of them dozens of times. The question remains in most peoples minds though that do these things belong in a church worship service? In my mind, if they cause people to seek God's face, then why not! If they are there purely for entertainment, then I say forget it!

Banners and pageantry? Symbolism for the sake of symbolism is just symbolism - nothing more. Meeting around the Lord's Table for Communion is Sooooo much more than symbolism - it is obedience to Christ's command.

A very thought provoking article, and worth reading just to understand how some people think.

Whoops, I did it again ...

I (and Karen ... and Camille) just sent our second son Shane off to Thailand to do a DTS with YWAM in Chiang Rai. And our first son - Thomas - is still leading a DTS team outreach with YWAM students from the Chiang Mai DTS that ends in Feb this year.

What an experience! Firstly getting Shane (love you son) onto that plane, and then dealing with the adrenaline deficit that has hit since yesterday morning. And then hearing (last night) that Thai Airways misplaced his backpack - in other words it didn't turn up at Chiang Rai airport baggage carousel with the rest of his gear!

Karen was feeling the stress a bit when she heard the news ... and she reminded me this morning that it wasn't fair because we had specifically prayed that his baggage would NOT get lost. Hmmm ... crisis of faith here potentially for me ... until God inspired me that if we prayed it in Jesus name, then it would surely come to pass. And so I said to Karen, it's not lost - just misplaced. Shortly after, I rang Shane on his mobile to be informed that he was at the airport picking up his backpack :-)

Isn't God good, and He is true to His word.

It seems so strange having our two boys both overseas on missions. As I just said ... God is good. Just when we thought it would be really quiet around here with only Camille (my daughter) and Karen home, and knowing that Karen and I are going to Thailand to help Thomas bring all of his stuff home in February, and Camille would be by herself (no bro's or folks) - one of Camille's old school friends decided to move back to Perth and needs somewhere to stay. So Camille has temporarily lost another bro, but gained a "sister". So as Shane would say ... "welcome to the hood Rebecca!"

Tomorrow morning I am preaching (sorry ... bringing the word) at 11/9 Church in Langford. This is the new house church Karen and I have been attending. It started on September 11th, 2005 - which expains the name (pronounced "eleven nine church").

It's funny how God's Spirit moved in a number of loosely connected people at the same time last year to leave their established churches and to step out into something new. Karen and I had both felt that it was time for us to leave Bethel Life Centre for several months, and eventually decided to make the move in August last year. When the pastors there asked us where we were going, we answered that we didn't know yet, but that God was leading us into something new to do with missions. Maybe a church with a HUGE focus on missions, or a new church! After all, missions is our passion ( oh okay ... and worship).

Karen and I both feel that one day we would like to do a Crossroads DTS with YWAM (thats a DTS for oldies like us). I have known in my spirit for some time that we were destined to be a missionary family. It is slowly coming to pass!

I remember during one of the last services that I worship led at Thornlie CoC about 5 years ago, that I played a segment of a video recording of Bill Gaunson's message (just before he was killed in that car accident) where he says "the only kind of Christian God wants is a missionary minded Christian". Those words obviously really impacted me, and it was not long after that when God turned our lives upside down and started preparing us for what lay ahead.

And so Shane is just beginning a 5 month experience of discipleship and cross cultural missions in nothern Thailand, and Thomas is drawing to a close his 3 year involvement in the Chiang Mai DTS - firstly as a DTS student, and then 2 years of staffing.

God has grown Thomas into an awesome leader, and a fine young man whom I am looking forward to spending time with again when he returns to Perth in February. If you want to read what God is doing in Thomas' life at the moment, go here ...

If you want to follow Shane's journey over the next few months, go here ...

And in 5 months it's back to Thailand for Shane's graduation. We're already praying for God to bless us with cheap airfares so that all 4 of us can go back for the big event. Hmmm ... I wonder if the kids will come to Karen's and my graduation if we do a Crossroads DTS?

To quote Napoleon Dynamite ... "peace out".