Daylight is One!

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear…daylight, Happy Birthday to you.

Thanks to everyone who’s visited, read the posts and given feedback. I’ve enjoyed it a whole lot – I hope you have too.

I’ve been tagged by Sets ‘n’ Service

Tony has tagged me about my reading habits – so here goes:

ONE BOOK THAT CHANGED YOUR LIFE:

I Believe in Preaching – John Stott This book changed my life when I discovered that as I preacher I was not free to say what I wanted to say but was instead completely captive to and under the control of the text.

ONE BOOK THAT YOU’VE READ MORE THAN ONCE:

Guidance and the Voice of God – Phillip Jensen and Tony Payne This book liberated me from an over-spiritualized and unbiblical view of how God tells me what he he wants. It saved me much heartache. I just wish more people would read it, get rid of all the silly-ness and save themselves that heartache.

ONE BOOK YOU’D WANT ON A DESERT ISLAND:

Great Joy – JI Packer  This little 31 day devotional helped me at a really tough time. I still pick it up every so often to be reminded of why I have joy in Christ.

TWO BOOKS THAT MADE YOU LAUGH:

Confessions of a Reformission Rev. – Mark Driscoll Its no secret that I’m a bit of Driscoll fan and the one thing you can’t deny about him is that whether speaking or in writing the man has a great sense of humour.

Blue Like Jazz – Donald Miller Don Miller’s book is a classic as far as I’m concerned – he weaves together humour with a brutally honest look at his own spirituality.

ONE BOOK THAT MADE YOU CRY:

The Kingdom of God in Africa – Mark Shaw Reading the accounts of some of the pioneer missionaries to my beautiful continent of Africa always makes the tears well up.

ONE BOOK YOU WISH HAD BEEN WRITTEN:

A New Testament theology of the Church – Peter O’Brien. As far as I’m concerned there aren’t many better New Testament exegetes out there today. I know O’Brien has written a few essays here and there on church but I’d like him to write a fairly comprehensive treatment of the subject that goes beyond just the meaning of the term ‘ekklesia’ and looks at the many rich metaphors that the NT uses for the church.

ONE BOOK YOU ARE CURRENTLY READING:

A Clear and Present Word – Mark D. Thompson This is both a fascinating read and I think an absolutely crucial read for our contemporary context. Its also highly readable which helps.

ONE BOOK YOU’VE BEEN MEANING TO READ:

Neither Poverty nor Riches – Craig L. Blomberg Its sitting there on my shelf along with a dozen other books waiting to be read.

Right, my turn to tag some peeps – I tag:

Dion, Kyle, Jeff, Ant, Chris, Jeremy and Michael – You guys are it!

So “New” that we miss the “Old”

Kevin Jamison made the following insightful little remark in the context of concerns that he holds about a certain ministry he used to be involved in. And although the remark concerns that particular ministry he also notes that this problem extends far wider to broader evangelicalism. Here’s what he had to say:

“It seems today that many Christians are more familiar with “Blue Like Jazz” and “Velvet Elvis” than they are with the book of Joshua, or even the book of Romans! Young Christians are trying to become “New Kinds of Christians” without ever really learning about the historic Christian faith.”

I must say that his sentiments ring so true with me. I’m beginning to meet younger Christians here in South Africa who are completely absorbed in that sort of literature but have never read large sections of scripture. And I say this as an out and out Donald Miller fan – I absolutely love his books. I fear though that a “New Kind of Christian” who doesn’t clearly understand an “Old Kind of Christianity” is going to end up as a “New Kind of Nothing Much”.

Birthday Build-Up: The Posts you should’ve Read

Its 2 days to go until this blog’s very first birthday. And as we approach this landmark I thought I’d have a bit of a nostalgic trip down memory lane and some of the posts I’ve written in the past. Today I want to make mention of some of the posts that didn’t do so well in terms of hits but that I wish had got better readership than other posts which drew in many more readers. These are the ones I wanted people to read:

Pray for Zimbabwe (15/03/07)

Missional Influences (13/04/07)

In conversation with daylight #1 (31/05/07)

In conversation with daylight #2 (01/06/07)

Michael Spencer and CESA (02/06/07)

South Africa, “Prosperity” and Church Planting (12/07/07)

Application Beyond the Structures (02/08/07)

10 Tips for On-Line Christian Discussion (25/09/07)

These posts will tell you a lot about what’s important to me.

Amatomu and the not so ‘South African’ Blogsphere

I always like to see if new people have signed up blogs under the ‘religion‘ category at Amatomu. Its by far the smallest category (26 blogs at present) and so you notice when someone new is added. Today though I noticed something strange – the appearance of a new blog entitled ‘Inspiration and Encouragement’ run by April Lorier. So naturally I went over to have a look. It seemed like a straightforward Christian psychology blog of sorts – nothing out of the ordinary there but then I probed a bit more to find out about April Lorier. This is what her brief bio reads:

“APRIL LORIER- Southern California. An award-winning poet, inspirational author and speaker. A survivor of both child abuse and adult domestic abuse, April inspires women to be all that God designed them to be! She first gained recognition as a children’s rights crusader while successfully fighting for the passage of the Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act (CANRA), which was signed into law by Ronald Reagan.”

Notice something strange? The blog has absolutely nothing to do with South Africa. Now there are hundreds of blog aggregators out there for all sorts of categories but Amatomu, as their tagline states, has ‘the south african blogsphere, sorted‘. Do they not have some sort of filter system to check that the blogs they’re tracking really are South African or at least have some sort of relevant contact to South Africa?

Now April’s blog is not really my cup of tea, but I’ve got nothing against April Lorier. The problem is that unless I’m missing something, her blog is not a South African blog nor is it authored by a South African – in which case it shouldn’t be on Amatomu because it doesn’t serve the purposes for which Amatomu exists. What do the other SA bloggers think?

Its Just Me Again…

As some of you are aware for the past few months ‘…daylight’ has attempted to be something of a community blog with 4 different authors. However it hasn’t quite worked out and so I’m reverting the blog back to simply being my own personal blog. At the moment though I’m busy setting up another community blog that hopefully will turn out to be a true community blog with as many as 20 authors. I’m hoping Anthony, Odette and Mark will continue writing there along with myself from time to time.

I want to thank Anthony and Odette for their posts and insights and I hope you’ll always return to comment. To Mark – you never quite got going – that’s ok. Now that your masters is almost finished maybe you can start writing.

Well, its just me again…

Genesis 6 – Poor Animals!

In the last few months I’ve been scanning the bible for links between humanity and the creation and the relationship between the gospel and the complete re-creation of all things. Here’s an interesting little insight I came across in Genesis 6 and 7 this morning.

Notice that God gets ticked with the wickedness and rebellion of humans – so what does he do? Well he drowns almost the entire animal and bird population! Yes he drowns the people too – but we expected that. The poor animals go to Davey Jones’ locker because of man’s rebellion. Seems that somehow the fate of the natural world is intrinsically tied to the relationship between people and God. And so when God rescues Noah and his family animals get rescued too – now you might argue that God only rescues the animals because Noah and his family won’t last for very long in a world with out animal life. But then you come to Paul in Romans 8:19

“The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”

Humanity getting rescued leads to the liberation, ultimately, of the entire creation – that seems to be the biblical pattern. The crux question though for us then is: How does this affect the rescued Christian’s relationship to the natural creation?

The Big Boys…According to Facebook

Who are the biggest ‘influencers’ in western Christianity today? Who are the real movers and shakers in the Christian public sphere? There’s only one guaranteed place to turn to for real answers when it comes to social influence: Facebook!

So here’s the top 10 Christian icons according to Facebook groups (…well the top 10 I could find, or chose to find anyway).

1. Rob Bell – Rob is the undisputed heavyweight of Christian Facebook leaders. His Nooma/Rob Bell group weighs in with 2775 members.

2. John Piper – The Pope of the Reformed tradition runs with a 1423 member group.

3. Donald Miller – Christian author of the moment Donald Miller weighs in with a group of 1203 members.

4. Mark Driscoll – The future Pope of the Reformed tradition ‘resurges’ into 4th spot with a group of 1059 members.

5. John MacArthur – Spreading Grace to You MacArthur rolls in at 5th with a group of 647 members.

6. Brian McLaren – Everyone is going to hell with Brian McLaren in this group of 624 members.

7. CJ Mahaney – If you’re Reformed and Charismatic then he’s your man! CJ whips out a group of 425 members.

8. Tim Keller – The missional maestro from New York racks up a group of 360 members.

9. Matt Chandler – The local ‘Village’ pastor steps up to the big league with a group of 264 members.

10. Benny Hinn – Through an absolute miracle Benny wiggles his way into the top 10 with a group of 215 members (although I couldn’t quite figure out if the group was an appreciation group or something he shouldn’t show to his family).

And there you have it – on the flawless authority of Facebook. (PS – let me about any other interesting ‘Christian Icon’ groups).

A Summer of Sermons

Everyone is enjoying the end of their summer holidays before returning to work, but me. I’m sitting indoors writing a sermon for tomorrow night…aaaarrrgggghhhh! Here’s a little poem that keeps me going:

The sun is shining the weather is great
Lord help me concentrate

That thing called ‘Church’

During 2007 I had interactions with numerous church pastors and planters, both in the flesh and on the web. Through these I’ve become convinced that I need to get my ecclesiology clear in my head over the course of 2008. So I’m going to concentrate my studies in this area. Here’s a list of some of the questions I want to have a look at (feel free to point me towards literature that deals with any of the questions below):

According to the New Testament what do you have to have, as absolute minimum, for a church to exist?

What is the relationship between the church and the Kingdom of God?

What is the relationship between the church and social concern (as opposed to the relationship between Christians and social concern)?

What is the relationship between the church (local) and culture?

Is the Knox-Robinson view of church too narrow?

What does over-realised eschatology look like in the church?

What does under-realised eschatology look like in the church?

How do the above two questions relate to the plausibility of the homogeneous unit principle?

What do those same two questions have to say about the depth of gospel community a church should be attempting?

Are multi-site churches theologically viable?

I think these questions are crucial to not only ponder but begin to give solid biblical answers to if a new group of young leaders aim to plant and grow fresh expressions of church that reflect the pattern of the New Testament.

The Don’s Dad

You can pre-order a copy of D. A. Carson’s book on the life and ministry of his father, Tom Carson. The book is entitled, ‘Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson‘. If you listen to a lot of D. A. Carson’s talks then you’ll be aware that he often refers to the massive impact his father had on his own life and ministry. I’ve only heard a few illustrations and examples here and there that Carson has used in his sermons and if they’re anything to go by then this book could turn out to be the biography of 2008.

(HT – Justin Taylor)

Save them from their Sins

“She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.” – Matt. 1:21

Reading the story of Israel is one of endless frustration with the people of Israel. You have this amazing God who time and time again displays his faithfulness to Israel and yet they time and time again stumble and eventually spiral out of control into full blown idolatry. The announcement of Jesus then at the beginning of Matthew’s gospel as the one who will save these Jews from that endless cycle of sin is phenomenal statement by the angel. Jesus is viewed as the ultimate rescuer who will do what no judge, king or prophet could previously do: provide a solution to the sin of ‘his people’. As a gentile being ‘ingrafted’ into ‘his people’ makes that verse a phenomenal verse for me too because if I’m left to my own devices I too will spiral out of control into full blown idolatry. But Jesus has come to rescue! If I get to understand and experience one thing better this year then I hope its that rescue.

M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Anyone out there attempting the M’Cheyne Bible Reading plan this year? (If you don’t know what it is check out Michael Foster’s post). I last did it about 5 years ago I found it really helpful…tough…but helpful. Let me know if you’re going to have a go at it (even if you’re only planning on doing half the plan this year), maybe we can start a Facebook group or something to encourage each other as we go along (or other suggestions?)…

2008 and ‘the Blog’ is still here…

Its kind of a nice achievement to look back on almost a year of blogging at ‘…daylight’ (the first birthday is coming up in 10 days time). Its the 1st day of a new year and I’m still at it which is a satisfying feeling. I’ve felt like throwing in the towel a few times, or at least reducing the posting to 1 post a week but so many people have encouraged me over the course of this year and its kept me going  right through.

This coming year there’s a lot I wish to achieve, and what was once a fun hobby on the side has become quite high up on the list of important priorities for me, namely, to write helpful, thoughtful, relevant, realistically critical, encouraging, gospel promoting and God-honouring posts. Its become clear to me over this year that new media is an important phenomenon in our time – and yes even here in South Africa. And so its therefore become my conviction that Christians need to utilize and embrace, as far as they are able to, the avenues that new media provide. That might mean writing a blog, joining or starting a group on Facebook, starting a podcast, writing a wiki page or making youtube videos. For me it means keeping ‘…daylight’ alive and kicking in the South African blogsphere and beyond. So here’s to a year of blogging that achieves those goals. Happy New Year everyone.