The First Elephant – Cultural Intelligence – A Missional Necessity

Posted on by Dr. Martin J. Bragger

The current missional mindset of most local churches, and particularly of those in leadership, continues to be controlled by the assumption, even if subconsciously, that the goal is to reach a still-Christianised society living on what might be termed a ‘cultural Earth,’ whereas the reality is that most of Western society has changed address to a distant ‘cultural Pluto’. The failure to realise and respond to this is a major factor in the missional malaise

Missional Mathematics and the Pagan Challenge

Posted on by Dr. Martin J. Bragger

For a quarter of a century at least, survey after survey, data release after data release, census after census, have shouted out the developing crisis in terms of the Church’s dismal missional effectiveness. Yet with a deafness (deliberate or otherwise) to the few voices calling out the nakedness of the missional Emperor, and a blindness to the reality of an ever-rotating kaleidoscope of cultural tribes undergoing tectonic change, we have continued along the same now decades-long road, strewn with ‘Square Wheel’ missional failures.

Isn’t There More to Being a Christian Than This?

Posted on by Dr. Martin J. Bragger

Even in the face of the well-documented chronic, decades long, serious decline of Christianity in Australia (the West) the experience has been that only a miniscule number of church members will take up opportunities for 'coal face'. local mission.

The Amputated Soul

Posted on by Dr. Martin J. Bragger

For two hundred years we had sawed and sawed and sawed at the branch we were sitting on. And in the end, much more suddenly than anyone had foreseen, our efforts were rewarded, and down we came. But unfortunately, there had been a little mistake: The thing at the bottom was not a bed of roses after all; it was a cesspool full of barbed wire . . .It appears that an amputation of the soul isn’t just a simple surgical job, like having your appendix out. The wound has a tendency to go septic.’

Mission – Playing the Long Game

Posted on by Dr. Martin J. Bragger

So how do we think about mission to our local community? Are we still we relying on ‘invitation to special church services’; one off ‘event evangelism’ activities (e.g., men’s breakfasts, women’s dinners etc); infrequent local doorknocking; strategies that have been very low fruit for a long time? Or is it time to establish ‘long game’ strategies,

Gospel Ripples

Posted on by Dr. Martin J. Bragger

Most of us at times have had a bit of fun throwing a stone into a pond and seeing the ripples spreading outwards. It has often seemed to me that this, what we might call the ‘Ripple Effect’, is a very good analogy for Jesus’ instruction to his followers in Acts 1:8 where he says- … Continue reading Gospel Ripples

Quantum Mission – The Book

Posted on by Dr. Martin J. Bragger

                                  Something Completely Different for a Kaleidoscope World ‘If you do not change you can become extinct.’ Haw in 'Who moved my Cheese?' This book can be obtained in hardback, paperback, and e-book formats HERE and at most major online book retailers. *** Quantum Mission is the result of the author's Melancholy Conclusion that, … Continue reading Quantum Mission – The Book

Quantum Mission is Pagan Mission – and it Costs.

Posted on by Dr. Martin J. Bragger

‘When you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols’ *** Western society is at an historical hinge point; that it is undergoing an unprecedented cultural shift of tectonic proportions; a society that is experiencing rapid and accelerating cultural change in which the only ‘certainty’ is ‘uncertainty’; one which … Continue reading Quantum Mission is Pagan Mission – and it Costs.

God is Weeping Still

Posted on by Dr. Martin J. Bragger

Recently, as I was travelling in a foreign land it began to rain. Not ordinary rain, but the heavy, heavy drops of the Monsoon. As I watched the rain fall, I was reminded of this article I wrote many years ago, one that now seems even more relevant in our times- *** We had rain … Continue reading God is Weeping Still

That Hideous Strength – The Silence is Not Golden

Posted on by Dr. Martin J. Bragger

‘The spiritual crisis which is engulfing the West is the worst since the end of the fifth century.’