A few years ago, 2008 to be precise, as part of a paper I was writing at the time, I carried out a small survey in regard to the level of passion in congregations in regard to reaching the community with the gospel. The format was that I asked a number of Senior Ministers to … Continue reading The Dead Hand of Apathy
A Great Leap Forwards – Into the Nineties!
I believe it was George Bernard Shaw who is reputed to have said “I went to church today and for once was not depressed!” My recent experiences have sadly not been so positive! To quote the home page of this site- “Unbounded Church is an idea – The idea that the church needs to be … Continue reading A Great Leap Forwards – Into the Nineties!
Unbounded Church and the Divine Freedom
The central motivation for this website is the belief that if the ‘church’ is to achieve its Divine mandate to go and make disciples it needs to be set free (unbound) from its captivity to current traditional forms of ‘doing church’ and mission. The great tragedy is however, and one with seriously negative implications for … Continue reading Unbounded Church and the Divine Freedom
Mission and ‘Messy Theology’
“To live a creative life we must lose our fear of being wrong” Joseph L Pearce **************************************** I have always had a great interest in science, particularly new discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics, the science of stars, black holes, how the universe works etc. and now in the current debates about quantum … Continue reading Mission and ‘Messy Theology’
The Problem With ‘All’
Sometimes when I’m thinking about the general missional unfruitfulness of Australian churches I wonder how much it is due to the prevalent use of the HDV bible. The HDV (Humpty Dumpty Version) has I believe had a seriously deleterious effect on our missional activities. Just to remind us, Humpty Dumpty is a character who … Continue reading The Problem With ‘All’
Planning to Fail In An Uberized Netflix World
Summer’s sun beats down, January days slip by, schools’ return looms near and down in the forest of parish-land there is the faint rustling of ministers stirring from their summer slumbers. First musings on sermon series seep into the consciousness, music leaders are planning their selections, Sunday school programs call for attention. A seemingly endless … Continue reading Planning to Fail In An Uberized Netflix World
A Dangerous Delusion
I have written previously of the fact that I believe in the church we have a Crisis. I use this word in the sense that we are at a point in the life of the church in Australia when we will go one of two ways, continued decline or revival, in the same way as … Continue reading A Dangerous Delusion
The 5th Dimension-How the West Was Lost
The 5th Dimension-How the West Was Lost The second half of the biblical Book of Daniel (of Lions’ Den fame) paints an apocalyptic view of middle-eastern history through the period of the successive Persian, Greek and Roman empires. This, what might be called ‘the series of the collapse of the empires’ (Chapters 7-12), should be … Continue reading The 5th Dimension-How the West Was Lost
The Closing Window
Up to some point in the SS Titanic’s fatal journey towards the notorious iceberg there remained a window of opportunity during which decisive action could have been taken that would have avoided the disaster that ultimately took place. We know of course that such action was not taken, at least before it was too late, … Continue reading The Closing Window
Never on a Sunday
Recently I accidently tuned into a radio station playing the song ‘Never On A Sunday’. As I listened I heard couple of the lines which went- “Never on a Sunday when the church is full of people And the bells are ringing in the steeple” And I thought –well that doesn’t work anymore! There are … Continue reading Never on a Sunday
