Is anybody listening?

May 11th, 2014

The shaping of things to come by Mike Frost and Alan Hirsch was published more than a decade ago now. It was at the time a revolutionary book which had a lot to say to contemporary churches and christians. Ten years later it still needs to be read. Here’s a few of the things we […]

Read more .....

Update on sermons and why we should abandon them (for the most part)

May 2nd, 2014

Last post I discussed the messages our dependence on sermons sends, and referred back to a study I had done on Sermons – not how we learn best? A reader went to that page and found a bunch of broken links. I have therefore completely re-structured the page, and included quite a lot of new […]

Read more .....

What do sermons say about churches?

April 27th, 2014

Pretty much all Protestant churches have sermons – generally as the centrepiece of the weekly service. Sometimes we learn from them, sometimes we don’t. In fact studies by educationalists show that they are a poor method of teaching or changing behaviour, though they do generally make people feel good (see Sermons – not how we […]

Read more .....

I'm a MennoNerd!

April 23rd, 2014

I’ve been a sort of dissident christian for a long time. I believe most of the basic doctrines of the christian faith and I hang out with other christians and do christian stuff. But I don’t fully belong.

Read more .....

Easter Saturday prayer vigil for refugees

April 20th, 2014

9 of 12 members of our church who attended the vigil. I have blogged before on the plight of refugees from war-torn or unstable countries like Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iraq and Iran arriving in Australian waters by boat and Australia’s somewhat callous attitude to them – see links below this post. Australia outsources some of […]

Read more .....

Is the church dying? Do we need to be worried?

April 16th, 2014

Many atheists make strong statements about how the church is in terminal decline, and it’s only a matter of time til it is reduced to an insignificant minority in most western countries, and eventually worldwide. Some christians may be influenced by these claims. I did some research for my other blog to check out the […]

Read more .....

The Old Testament: an update on a journey (part 2)

April 7th, 2014

Last post I described how I have been on a journey working out what I think is true, or not, about the Old Testament. This post I try to draw some conclusions.

Read more .....

The Old Testament: an update on a journey (part 1)

April 1st, 2014

This post is very much a personal reflection about a journey I am still on. For years I didn’t think much about the Old Testament. I read it sometimes, looked up passages occasionally, appreciated Isaiah and Ezekiel. But I didn’t really spend much time considering what I thought about it. After all, I am a […]

Read more .....

Book review: Evangelical Faith and the Challenge of Historical Criticism

March 24th, 2014

I’ve been reading a few books on the Old Testament lately. Paradoxically, this is probably the one I most disagreed with, yet also the one I gained the most from.

Read more .....

Book review: 'I love Jesus and I accept evolution' by Denis Lamoureux

March 19th, 2014

Last year I posted about how christians are gradually becoming more accepting of the theory of evolution. As part of that post, I reviewed the work of Denis Lamoureux, Associate Professor of Science and Religion at the University of Alberta in Canada, based on some online slideshow teachings he has produced. I have now read […]

Read more .....

A list of all blog posts, in reverse chronological order, is on the Blog archive page.