Hi to all who read this blog.
I wish you all a year of no regrets.
Of Opportunities taken
Of Kairos time broken into Chronos time in your life
Of a very real sense of the presence and knowledge of Jesus Christ in your life.
I hope for peace, healing, joy, hope and love for you this year.
If 2009 was a awful year for you, I hope you have a 2010 which exceeds all your expectations.
So thinks one of the foremost authorities on it, Andrew Jones (TSK)
Here
“In my opinion, 2009 marks the year when the emerging church suddenly and decisively ceased to be a radical and controversial movement in global Christianity.”
One of the factors Andrew did not talk about was the demise of Forge here in Australia. Which occured in 2009.
Forge Demise
Andrew has this view on EC.
“In many places around the world, the movement has already been either adopted, adapted, or made redundant through the traditional church catching up or duplicating EC efforts” (Andrew)
Forges own webpage expressed a similar sentiment, but it appears the page is now down.
From my own perspective and own church life, Forge and the Emerging Church have had no impact in a positive sense on my mission. Being a natural evangelist, and a passionate advocate of an ‘outward’ focused church, we consider ourselves to be a missional church, in the sense that we are seeking to grow through people coming to faith. We are not a ‘cosy’ little bible study group.
This has not come without cost, as our church has had to transition to this. But this had not been through Forge or EC influences, rather people like Borden, who advocated painful church transition, rather than rejection of the establised church, which at its worst, the EC did seemingly promote. The Churches in WA which had seen and implemented radical transformation, and an outward focus, are missional, growing churches…Churches actually doing mission in their community.
However I am not here to judge their efforts, as someone a lot wiser than myself said, “But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”
Besides…what was the Emerging Church anyway? I don’t think anyone really knew…as Murry states, “Emerging churches are so disparate there are exceptions to any generalisations. Most are too new and too fluid to clarify, let alone assess their significance. There is no consensus yet about what language to use: ‘new ways of being church’; ’emerging church’; ‘fresh expressions of church’; ‘future church’; ‘church next’; or ‘the coming church’. The terminology used here contrasts ‘inherited’ and ’emerging’ churches”
At Inglewood Church we had a seriously good Christmas
Christmas Eve saw a huge crowd crammed into the Community Centre for our Childrens service.
Well over half the crowd was non-churched, which is awesome.
Christmas Day was packed as well, with more of a trad feel, more of our own folk, but a lot of visitors as well…
It left me drained…emotionally, physically etc.
Christmas day we had a big lunch, with my wife kicking up a massive food extravanganza. The highlight was the warm fat plump olives drenched in her own olive oil based herb dressing, and lightly pan fried Chorizo sausage, also in olive oil and herb dressing…
Afterwards we headed over to the brother in laws pool and had a massive water pistol fight. We slept in a tent in the backyard…and I was officially wasted….no energy left at all!
Good times…roll on 2010
I don’t think I have ever laughed so hard at something I have written myself…
Christmas Eve message should be a beauty….with some real challenges from the story as well…..
Have to say…it was inspired by someone else…but I have made it my own, and added some details particular to Inglewood Church.
If you know and love some of the folk at Inglewood, and don’t mind a but of poking fun…you wont want to miss Christmas Eve!
You can listen to my Sunday message here…its about John The Baptist, burning some bridges with Pharisees and Sadducees…
Who else but a fiery prophetic type like John the Baptist to illustrate the need to sometimes ‘set the bridge on fire’.
“You brood of vipers…who warned you to flee from the coming wrath.
I mean John the Baptist is sarcastic, confrontational, mean!
Pastors have been sacked for a lot less than that!
So have Mc Donalds employees…
What gave John the right to talk so awfully to these religious leaders…he was not nice.
We confuse niceness with godliness.
God is God, He is nice sometimes…but a lot of the time He is not…nice
And John portrays something of Gods character here when he declares that those religious leaders were vipers…
I believe John portrays something of Gods character when he is sarcastic and downright mean to them…not only did they need to hear the words and the tone of Johns message towards them, but so did those around them……”
If you want to hear the rest, see you on Sunday…
Here is a presentation I have made up, probably use on Christmas Day….interspersed with some scriptures from Isaiah 60
You can download a wmv version by right click here
If you do use it, please let me know…