Independence!

Having resigned my commission so-to-speak and come off the accredited list of Baptist ministers, I felt a little isolated and vulnerable when it came to my position when serif families through the funerals that I have continued to do. I could have taken out a simple insurance policy to cover me, but I wanted to look for something that was more than just a liability protection plan. 

So I've joined an organisation called the Federation of Independent Celebrants. It's a mixture of folk from all sorts of backgrounds who serve in a variety of ways celebrating life's great events. It's early days of course, so there's little for me to say about how it all works and what it means to me beyond the insurance cover to be part of such an organisation. On the either hand it's good to be part of something and I look forward to learning from and maybe sharing with others.

If you're in a similar position to me, independent of a church and yet still looking to serve the community in this way, then you too might like to look at the FOIC. You can read more about them at the website foic.org.uk.

18 Questions

Just reading through those questions this morning made me think to myself, "I need these in my Bible as a ready reference."

So I quickly made a DL sized (that's 1/3 the size of a landscape piece of A4) book mark for that purpose.

It's not flash, it doesn't need to be, but in case you wanted to do the same, you can find a pdf here to print and slice up if you don't have the time to do one for yourself.

Scripture Memory

I use BibleGateway a lot these days. It's fast and fairly easy to use, although I do miss some of the nuances of my old software. One day I will take a deep breath and buy some software for the Mac, but as I yet I haven't seen anything that I really like and can afford!

Anyway, as I visited the site as part of my study time I noticed a link to the "top 100 verses" searched in March and April this year. Intrigued I took a look. Unsurprisingly John 3:16 was top of the list, but out of the 100 almost all of them would be worthy of learning if only we had the desire and discipline so to do. I remember my early days as a follower of Jesus as I rigourously and diligently applied myself to Scripture memory.

In that first year I did more foundational stuff than I think most new Christians get to do and it was all largely thanks to the fellowship and encouragement of the members of the Navigator group in Cardiff at the time. Sadly, my discipline in memorising the Bible has never quite reached the level of those early days, but there are times when I find myself committing things to memory. Perhaps it's time once again to take up the challenge.

Anyway, take a look at the list and see how rich the resource is that we have to hand.

Graphic Design for churches and Church based organisations

I got sent a link to this new Graphic Design service for Churches and Church based Organisations. Hope they don't mind me putting on my blog!

If you need design work doing, they might be worth a look. Don't know how long they'll be able to keep the "free" service if it gets popular.

Ascent Creative

"Showtime!" and Missional

Here are a couple of interesting articles from this week's Leadership e-newsletter Leadership Weekly. The first is "Showtime!" No More, a fascinating piece about one minister and church's journey towards a more authentic expression of worship and mission than they were experiencing through the performance driven production that worship had become for them.

The second feature is Missional Misgivings by Dan Kimball. In this article Kimball raises the question of whether there is the evidence to support the claim that the missional model is working.

What I found particularly interesting about Showtime was how they sought to move from anonymity to community. This seems to coincide with Conrad's point that we've made the kingdom of God an individual matter with community implications when in fact it might just be about community with implications for the individual.

Kimball's article is helpful in opening up the debate about how attractional and missional could, maybe even should, co-exist. I know some people see missional as a replacement for and a more authentic expression of true mission than the attractional model, but the bottom line is that the attractional model, however flawed it might be, does have a track record of seeing people come to faith. And whether you are a missional advocate or an attractional advocate isn't this one of your primary goals?

I guess I might just be odd in that I am committed to discovering a missional model for the local church that enables everyone to be involved in ministry and mission, incarnating the gospel in every area of community life, and I'm committed to wanting the local church to be attractive as a place to explore the questions we have and the solutions the bible offers. I don't see these as incompatible either/or's rather both/and. Mission with incarnation is just a show a and the first article tells us all we need to know about how potentially dangerous that can be.

Better Christians or more disciples

When I went to the leadership day with Bill Hybels a couple of weeks ago I was given a DVD in the seminar pack. It was a talk by Jon Ortberg from the 2008 Reveal Conference. Must watch that I thought and finally today I did.

Amazing. Truly amazing. My honest opinion is that if you can get hold of this talk then you quite simply must. It's a powerful presentation of the need we face to challenge ourselves and those around us to become followers of Jesus at the deepest level.

In the talk Jon asks: "Do we admire Jesus or do we follow him?" "Admirers are impressed, followers are devoted", he says. 

The problem is that the Western Church has probably focused most of its efforts on making admirers more than followers. As Jon Ortberg points out we've reduced the gospel to the level of the minimum requirements for securing a place in heaven. We've created users of Jesus and not followers.

A great talk that needs a second and third watch with a notebook open and a prayerful heart.

CompassionArt

I read recently about Compassionart in an interview with Martin Smith, but wasn't really paying attention to release dates but a friend sent me the link to the site this morning and I wanted to post it here.

Live video stream from St Louis

I just got notification of a conference in St Louis run by the Acts29 network. It's going to be streamed live on the internet today, Tuesday, and you can watch it here.

The schedule looks like it has some interesting topics and the it's quite accessible to a UK audience, at least I hope it is because one or two of the topics are things I'd like to hear about. 

Here's a schedule.

Tuesday, October 21
9:15 am - Session #1: Gospel-Centered Repentance - Darrin Patrick (3:15BST)
10:30am - Session #2: Hybrid Leaders - Eric Mason (4:30BST)
1:45pm - Session #3: Christ-Centered Preaching - Dr. Bryan Chapell (7:45BST)

Wednesday, October 22
9:15am - Session #4: City Leaders - Randy Nabors
1:45pm - Session #5: Broken Leaders - Matt Carter
4:45pm - Session #6: Reluctant Leaders - Darrin Patrick (10:45BST)

These are Central times for the US, which as far as I remember means that things will start at 3:15pm BST. I've added BST times in red to the schedule.

Link for information on "walk this way"

The link for the Spring Harvest event in January is here.

A new resource

Through my RSS feeds I came across this "new" resource. the "About us" page offers the following description:

Too much of Church culture is about making Christianity easy. We believe Christianity should be something so substantial, so world-changing, so counter-cultural, that’s it’s worth giving your life for. Neue is giving voice to a direction that's different. It's counter-cultural ministry. Join us.

Now that intrigues me.

Check out the site for yourself at Neue.

Pastoral Care Workshops

I don't know how many people read my blog, and I certainly don't know how many live within easy reach of Bedford. What I do know is that driving to Farnham for the three workshops about which I've blogged has been a real effort. 

So, I just thought I'd put the feelers out and ask if anyone lives within easier reach of Bedford than Farnham, and if you would be interested in exploring these topics. I had a word with the workshop leaders at CWR and they were open to the idea of coming to Bedford and facilitating the workshops.

Each one is limited to 30 people, so we might even be able to host them here at Cotton End in the delightful Bedfordshire countryside!

Anyway, if you're interested,  post a comment and I'll see what we can do. 

Wordle

I'm planning a series on John's Gospel in the Autumn and I, in a completely disconnected kind of way, came across a website called wordle. This is what I made.

It's very easy to do, just paste in some text and it does the rest for you.

Primarily aimed at web pages, I'm guessing that I might very well be able to import the end result into Photoshop via a pdf. Will play some more.

Thanks to Ian's Messy Desk for finding this.

A long and busy day

So, we went to the Christian Resources Exhibition which entails walking up and down a seemingly endless array of stalls collecting information you want, information you don't want and information you didn't know you wanted until someone thrusts into your hand! I didn't find anyone who was talking about missional church or conversational evangelism but I did have one or two helpful chats with a few folk, especially about data projectors with long throw lenses. I'm sure you find that fascinating!

Having been quite regularly over the last few years, it's quite interesting to see how things appear to have changed. At one time there were a lot of photocopier suppliers demonstrating their wares. Now it seems as though there are more banks, ethical investment and insurance companies, and fund raising advisors. Some of the big exhibitors have cut down their presence and I didn't actually come across one theological college. It was noticeable too that there were fewer technical stands dealing with PA and AV equipment, lighting and stage stuff.

Perhaps it was just the way I approached it all this year that I missed some organisations that I expected to see, but then again maybe things have changed and this kind of event no longer serves their needs. I think for some sadly, the event has become too expensive to justify being there. Still there was a lot to get around and, armed with my trusty Ikea bag I set off in pursuit

of information and inspiration. This year for the first time, I took advantage of the seminar programme and attended a seminar on All-Age Worship. 

Suitably tired I returned to the Bible Society stand to buy some books that had caught my eye and then wandered back to our agreed meeting-point to drive home. The M25 was gloriously slow as usual and we turned off early to avoid the trauma that is the M1 at 5:00 in the afternoon.

Now all that's left is to go through everything I've accumulated and decide what is worth keeping and what needs to be recycled, but that can wait until tomorrow when my aching shoulders have had a rest. In the meantime there's a website for an organisation, the founder of which I know, and who planted an idea in my head for something I might do during my sabbatical. Very interesting!

Off to CRE tomorrow

Every year there is a major exhibition of Christian resources in Esher, Surrey. It's a great way to find out what's new and what's useful for church and ministry. So off I will go tomorrow and collect a bagful of information about all sorts of things. I'll take some of my questions too and see if any else is asking about Conversational Evangelism and Missional Church.