A friend of mine who lives in Darwin at the ‘Top End’ of Australia had in his back yard a very large and beautiful Mango tree, that is until the day he went outside only to find the tree crashed to the ground dead. The problem, one not unfamiliar to those who live in the … Continue reading Amos and the ‘Church is Great Today’ Delusion
One of the contributing factors to the general lack of missional fruitfulness by the traditional western church is the mindset that confuses the evangelistic ‘Activities’ designed to produce missional fruit with the desired missional ‘Outcomes’ themselves. This is what might be called the ‘Activity Trap’ We know that Jesus constantly indicated that he was looking … Continue reading The Activity Trap
As we enter the fading Twilight of 2017, all indicators are that the gospel influence on Australian society similarly fades as a rising tide of godless darkness consumes the erstwhile Christianized landscape. The metrics of this tide are well documented: the now well entrenched missional failure and the consequential decades-long chronic trend of decline in … Continue reading A New Babylonian Captivity
The Cunard ship the Queen Mary was a floating palace when it started to carry the exceedingly rich across the north Atlantic before the second world war. It was fitted out in the most opulent and sumptuous manner, with the finest materials that money could buy, with staterooms that were fit for a King. Then … Continue reading Don’t Mention the War!
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
The apostle Paul in referring to the gifts he had received from the Philippian church to support him in his gospel work describes them as “a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God” Philippians 4:18 I meditated on this “fragrance” pleasing in the ‘nostrils of God when ‘church’ happened tonight. It was a week … Continue reading As ‘Church’ Happened Tonight
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!
While there are variations, the missiological strategies of most mainline churches are primarily based on and operate with a fundamentally Christendom form structure mindset. This despite there being what might be called a ‘Divine Freedom’ to do things very differently. There are a number of arguments that can be made for this, for example- i) … Continue reading The Unbound Church and the Divine Freedom
‘Cogito, Ergo Sum’ – But Maybe I Am Not? “Cogito, Ergo Sum”. “I think therefore I am”, is a famous and profound statement made by the 17th Century French philosopher Rene Descartes. His point was that the evidence that he really exists is the fact that he can actually think about his existence! This is … Continue reading ‘Cogito, Ergo Sum’ – Or Maybe I Am Not?
Much of the time I tend to operate in my own world, too busy to ‘look over the parapet’ and see much of what other denominations are doing. However now and again I get an opportunity to do so. One such opportunity occurred a while ago when I was invited to a meeting on the … Continue reading There Are A Lot of Us ‘In the Box’
unbounded church 