Josh ‘bogan’ Carr has moved to the top of the well respected Herald Sun Footy Player of the year count.

This has been his best year for Freo, and maybe his best year yet. Goes to show what getting to know your teamates, and your place within the team will do for you.
Watching him towel up, and annoy Brown during Port’s premiership win, you can see the fella fights out of his weight range, and on that particular day took home the points.

He is the sort of player that opposition fans grow to dislike, and Freo fans are quickly warming too. Put it this way, when he is harassing, haranging, annoying, insulting, scragging and outscoring the player he is meant to be tagging, you are glad he is on your side.

No problem!
The Crossing Community Church is giving away $10 fuel vouchers to first time attendees.

The congregation saw an influx of new members when it opened, but things have stalled a bit since then. On popular church days like Christmas and Mother’s Day, they get about 100. This free petrol campaign is their latest attempt to recruit.
The Creative Arts Pastor is quoted as saying, “We’ll pay your gas to get you here. Our guarantee is that our service will be the best hour of your week,” Poole said.
The campaign’s details are online at http://www.freegastochurch.com./ Poole and Harper (Lead Pastor) have mailed 40,000 fliers to area homeowners and even come up with a slogan, “Sorry, we just ruined a perfectly good excuse!” (for not showing up to church).Poole said he has seen results. Last week, 14 new visitors attended the Sunday service. He expects a couple dozen more this Sunday.

This is from the ‘marketing’ section of their website,
“At The Crossing, we will create a brand; that will become easily identifiable in our sphere of influence. We intended to design a brand identity that will call to mind many things such as a relaxed atmosphere, an unhurried pace, family friendly attitudes and activities, male-oriented themes and scripturally based/culturally relevant messages. All with an orientation towards missions.
We desire to be the first “Brand” of church that comes to a non-attender’s mind when thinking of or looking for a church. We purpose to have all our advertising, marketing, buildings, ministries, and activities easily identifiable as being part of the ministry of The Crossing.
It is astonishing to me the lengths secular corporations will go in order to market relatively insignificant products like deodorant or nail polish. It is equally astonishing to me that while the church has the most important, most compelling message ever – Jesus Christ and His atoning work – that we have done so little to “market” His message. We need to get that message out using every means possible so that every life possible may be positively changed forever. Therefore we advertise The Crossing through many different avenues.”

My comment? Interesting stuff.

Saint Gaz has a discussion about church and business. Rather than hijack the thread I thought I might post some of my own thoughts here.

One statement he quotes is from Barna,
“As corporate models have flourished in ministry the church in North America has lost ground both quantitatively and qualitatively”

In 2004 I visited many of the church in the North West of America and saw flourishing churches, both “quantitatively and qualitatively”. In fact these churches were seeing their communities changed, and their own sense of spirituality revitalised after decades of spiritual apathy. Both I and the Pastors I travelled with believed we were seeing a quiet revival going on in churches that had got sick of coming up with more spiritual platitudes to justify decline. These were real churches, and real people both becoming Christians and having their spiritual purpose defined in more healthy models. Everyone defines reality from their own experience. I am drawing on my own experience at speaking with and witnessing these things going on, and not just in one type of church, but in churches from a Willow Creek Model to a social justice and welfare model. The common denominator was a change in organisational structure. One best defined by me with the word ‘purposeful’.

Within Baptist Churches in WA, as far as I can tell, the old model of church governance was based on mistrust. The stories I heard about, even as a child growing up in a Baptist Church, were embarassing. Embarassing because Christians should not treat one another, or anyone, with such disrespect and mistrust. Those who were appointed as leaders were not allowed to lead, but were the first to cop it in the kneck when things went ‘pear shaped’. The Model that Paul Borden has introduced into WA Baptist Churches is based on trust and is in my view much more biblical and allows for spiritual freedom. I have seen it work in my own church. Last year we had more people become Christians than in my first 11 years of ministry there. We also saw some apathetic and controlling Christians leave, which was sad. Either way, adopting a more “business like” approach has forced us to be more serious about what is the most important job in the world, leading people to Christ, and helping people develop deeper spirituality.

The model of being purposeful and expecting people to perform (or bear fruit if you want to use spiritual language) has much more integrity than what I have seen demonstrated in churches in the past. Where we are all just nice to each other, even when people are just being sinful and lazy.

I don’t know how you overcome spiritual apathy without some sense of accountability. I certainly see that in Jesus’s ministry. In fact many contemporary business principles appear to have their origins in Biblical stories, or at the very least have some parallels.

If what we are on about is the most important aspect of our lives, if our mission really is a priority, then I think it would be plain foolish to ignore structures, strategies, KPI’s.
I believe God will hold me accountable when my time comes, and somehow there needs to be a parallel in this life for us as a church.

With all I have said above goes a deep commitment to prayer. Without a healthy reliance upon the power of the Holy Spirit, and His power to change lives, nothing will happen. But this does not excuse us of our role and obedience, or deny the reality that some leaders are more skillful than others.

In reference to some commentators who do not like the excesses they see within some denominations where the Pastor is an autocrat and there is no accountability, neither do I.
In the model I advocate, the person most accountable and responsible is the Senior Pastor. He/she must come up with a yearly strategy with goals included. This must be distributed to all the members, who themself are accountable to the Pastor to help. If the goals and strategies are not achieved, everyone will know about it, and there needs to be accountability. In other words the Pastor is held accountable.
Also if the goals and strategies are achieved, there should be rejoicing over that.
This system requires mutual accountability. The pastor is responsible to the right people, but also has the authority he/she needs in order to be creative and free to see the goals achieved.

In all our discussion of these things I think there is much confusion and misunderstanding on both sides.

All heart, all courage, all spirit. Number Eight.
Shaun is to have testimonal luncheon held in his honour on Sunday 18th at the Burswood Ballrooom, hopefully after we smash the Geelong Cats at Subi the day before.
Shaun is the heart and soul of the club.
Who can forget him fronting up to press conference after press conference in the dark dim “Drum” years?
Who can forget his courage in backing into a running Wiirapanda, taking the mark, and then getting up and kicking the goal?
Who can forget the game this photo was taken from? When we kicked a massive winning score over the Bulldogs, with Shaun Best on Ground by far?
He will never be forgotten in the history of the FFC. A true icon.
Shaun intends to play on in 2007, and I hope he does.

Our church is selling our pews, and you are very welcome to buy one!
I shared with our people on Sunday that the reason we are selling them is not for our own comfort’s sake. In fact our pews are comfortable. The problem we are having is that Toddler Jam (Our community program for toddlers) is growing so quickly and well, that we are having problems fitting all the people in. We have gone to three days a week now, and the Friday session is filling up. Because we meet in the church, we have to push back the pews every Tuesday, and reposition them in place for Sunday. Its not only a big job, but also does not really leave enough room for the 35 or so jumping toddlers and mums to move to music.
Our Thanksgiving Sunday went very well, better than I expected, on Sunday, yet we still need about $6000 more. Hopefully we will get a bit for these pews. If you want one, give me a call or email.

Here it is, my prediction for prosperity.
Brett Peake will win a Brownlow, you heard it first here.
He wont win it this year, but he will win it

Blistering runs down the field, long booming kicks into the foward line. Accurate, confident.
Yesterday he was the one who sparked the team in the third and fourth quarter particularly.
Brett was the first player to be drafted by Freo under the father son rule at the 2003 . He did not play for Freo during the 2004 season, but had his debut against the Roos in 2005. His father, Brian Peake played 304 games for the Sharks, and 66 for Geelong. Brett is of a more slight stature than his dad, but definitely quicker, and some might say, more skillful.

Great win by Freo yesterday.
Despite what the commentators are saying, I thought Freo showed real grit and determination to keep going despite the Roos tactics of flooding and tried to bottle up the game.

It is a little sad for me to see Leigh Brown in Roo’s colours. He was one of my favourite players at Freo. A real workman, lots of grit and courage.
Can’t find it in myself to boo or wish him badly, even if he is in oppositon colours.

Great win, and will be a real fight next week against Brisbane, who are playing much better with a thumping win over Port.

Good to see Matthew Carr in the side, who played his best game for the season yesterday.

Just one little whinge. Here is the umpires decisions for our games this year.
Frees for us listed first, against listed second.

Rd 1 Hawks: 14-15 (away loss)
Rd 2 Blues: 15-21 (home win)
Rd 3 Port : 17-22 (away win)
Rd 4 Crows: 17-17 (home loss)
Rd 5 Saints:15-27 (away win)
Rd 6 Weagles: 16-23 (home win)
Rd 7 Melb : 16-19 (away loss)
Rd 8 Roos : 12-21 (home win)