Top 8 for 2008: Everything

Who was I kidding? There’s no way I’m going to find the time to write a series of ‘top 8 for 2008′ posts between now and the end of the year so instead I’ll simply cram them all into one post. So here you have it, my top 8 for 2008 of everything!

Top 8 things I did or experienced in 2008:

1. Got married! (October)
2. Got engaged! (March)
3. Started planning and implementing a church plant (All year – but especially last three months)
4. Heard Piper, Driscoll, Chandler and Mahaney at the Resurgence Conference at Mars Hill in Seattle, spent time at the Journey Church in St Louis and met a whole lot of great peeps from Acts 29, and others, in the States (February)
5. Was taught Deuteronomy by Gary Millar – the best Old Testament teacher I’ve been taught by to date (September)
6. Road up Sani Pass – my first real 4×4 experience behind the wheel (October)
7. Decided to stay in Cape Town long term – gotta love this city (March)
8. Had my thinking about the gospel deepened and enriched ten times over by Tim Keller through numerous mp3s, articles and the odd blog comment (throughout the year)

Top 8 Blogs I followed in 2008 (See my 2007 list here):

1. Church Planting Novice – Jonathan Dodson. A newcomer to the list, this blog has been perfect for where I’m at in my thinking at the moment. So much wisdom and insight from a guy on the ground.
2. Between Two Worlds – Justin Taylor. Last year’s number 1 drops down one place – but still a great blog.
3. Tim Chester. Up from last year’s number 7 spot. Tim’s writing never stops enlightening, challenging and encouraging all at the same time.
4. John Scheepers. Give it up for the Saffa bloggers! John is a friend of mine who writes a great blog and brings a welcome voice to the South African Christian blogsphere.
5. Drew Goodmanson. Down from #2 – sorry Drew. Drew doesn’t post very often, but when he does its almost always worthwhile.
6. Justin Moffat. Another newcomer to the list. Justin writes an informative and challenging blog with an Anglican slant – I’ve enjoyed it a lot this year.
7. Michael Jensen. Michael drops down from last years 3rd but still turns out great post after great post. Plus he sent me a copy of his new book which I’ll be reviewing here shortly.
8. Jason Allen. Jason was one of the first people I became ‘blog friends’ with when I started blogging. I’ve always enjoyed his blog and the sanity he brings to some current trends that rage through the church blogging world.

Top 8 Books for 2008 (books I read this year – most of them are older than 2008 – please note that the books are a little one-sided topically because most of my reading this year revolved around my dissertation):

1. Total Church – Steve Timmis and Tim Chester. Ok so I first read it in 2007 but I’ve read it several times this year because of my dissertation and I still think its the most important book I’ve ever read on ecclesiology.
2. The Reason for God – Tim Keller. The first apologetics book that I feel comfortable giving to my friends.
3. Planting Missional Churches – Ed Stetzer. Great book with practical insight. Really helpful for where I’m at.
4. The Forgotten Ways – Alan Hirsch. Really good yet at times frustrating. I’m on the same page as Hirsch with a number of things – I guess I’m just a bit more conservative on one or two others.
5. Breaking the Missional Code – Ed Stetzer and David Putman. Another great help on all things missional.
6. On the Incarnation – Athanasius. I delved into a bit of church history this year and thoroughly enjoyed this one.
7. The King of God’s Kingdom – David Seccombe. Dr Seccombe (Doc) was my New Testament lecturer this year and so I got a chance to have a crack at his book. It’s a great overview of Christ in the gospels.
8. Jesus and the Victory of God – NT Wright. Vintage Wright – I don’t agree with him at every point but this is an important book.

Top 8 places I visited in 2008

1. Seattle, Washington, USA
2. St Louis, Missouri, USA
3. Castleburn, Drakensburg, KZN
4. Sani Pass, Lesotho
5. Lost City, Sun City, North West Province
6. Franschoek, Western Cape
7. Betty’s Bay, Western Cape
8. Durban, KZN (my old stomping ground)

That’s my year in a nutshell. It’s been the year with the biggest changes in my life to date. Not only did I get married but we decided to stay in Cape Town and plant churches here rather than in Durban. Things have come a long way in the last 12 months – here’s to an equally exciting 2009.

Merry Christmas all – have a great one!

On a Journey – Part VIII

I’ve missed two days and so much has happened. The Resurgence Conference has kicked off and is full steam ahead already. But let me start with Sunday. On Sunday morning I went down for breakfast in the hotel and hooked up with a couple of guys from Bethlehem Baptist (John’s Piper’s church) who were also attending the conference. We were all really keen to attend a Mars Hill service that morning so we went along to the 11am service at the Ballard campus. And so after listening to all the podcasts, watching all the vodcasts, reading the books and reading the blogs I finally arrived in the flesh at Mars Hill Church. It was kind of a surreal experience in many ways to be thousands of kilometers across the ocean at the place you’ve read and heard so much about. And it definitely wasn’t a let down. The church is fairly massive but its nothing like any other mega church you’ll come across. Its got a very industrial look, being a converted warehouse. The lighting inside is all done up to create kind of grunge rock concert feel. Technology and multimedia is all over the place. And then the band got up to play – and it was nothing like any contemporary worship music. Instead the music had kind of an indie-rock feel to it with a lot of the songs being old hymns rearranged. It was a pretty awesome worship experience. And then Mark Driscoll took to the stage to preach. He was in the middle of a series of answering questions that the congregation had asked him. On this occasion he tackled the issue of the emerging church – but you can’t really just preach a sermon on the emerging church so before long he turned to Acts 17 and gave us a run down of how Paul engages culture with the gospel of Christ. At one stage he passionately declared what the foundational beliefs of Mars Hill Church are which he centered completely on the cross. At the end of that passionate little proclamation the congregation just broke into applause and cheering. It was unlike any kind of cheering or applause I’ve ever heard in a church – these guys were applauding the gospel! The entire experience was amazing.

After lunch the pre-conference tracks began and so I sat in a session of Q & A with the various campus pastors who explained how they’re figuring out the workings of multi-campus church. Mars Hill currently has 6 campuses. Mark Driscoll only preaches at Ballard (6 times on a Sunday) but the live video feed is sent to the other 5 campuses. Each campus has its own pastor (who only preaches when Mark is away), music team, community groups and is basically a church plant. It was interesting to hear how an operation the size of Mars Hill operates.

That evening I went out of supper with the guys from Bethlehem Baptist and then got to bed early for the next day of full sessions.

We started the morning with a session with Tim Smith, the worship pastor at Mars Hill, entitled ‘Building Missional Bands’. I was I quite surprised to see the Tim and Mars Hill were big into David Peterson’s ‘Engaging God’ – in fact Tim spoke quite passionately about avoiding the use of music as a spiritual mediator between you and God. It was so refreshing to hear guys that have a great theology of worship but still perform really high quality music in their church.

After that we had the main opening session of the conference with Mark Driscoll speaking on ‘Putting Pastors in their Place’. Mark came out all guns firing highlighting the centrality of preaching in church today – he was extremely passionate and extremely hard hitting – as only Driscoll can be. After his session we had a session with CJ Mahaney who preached on ‘Pastoral Character and Loving People’. CJ Mahaney is one of those guys who just oozes godliness and humility. He gave a challenging talk reminding pastors to have a heavenly perspective on the Christians that they serve. The final evening session was by John Piper entitled, ‘Why I trust the Scriptures’. It was an amazing privilege to finally hear Dr. Piper in the flesh. In fact Mark Driscoll was visibly moved as he introduced the great man of God. Unfortunately my brain was beginning to shut down by that time of the evening and so I’m glad all these talks will be available online shortly.

In between the last two sessions I got to have supper with Mike Gunn who is the international director of Acts29. He was super keen to hear about the potential for church planting in South Africa and so today I’m having lunch with a few other guys who are interested in planting internationally.

Its going to be another long day.

BTW check out Justin Buzzard’s blog – he’s live blogging the conference as the talks happen. Remember that you can also stream the talks live from the Resurgence site.

Resurgence Streaming

So some of you back in South Africa are a little jealous that I get to be in Seattle next week listening to John Piper, CJ Mahaney, Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler and others. Well the guys at Resurgence don’t want you to be completely left out the loop so they’ll be streaming all the Q & A sessions live from their website. So find someone with adsl and a seriously big cap limit and have a watch. Maybe if they pan through the crowd you’ll catch a glimpse of me!

This is so exciting…

Resurgence Conference 2008: I’ll be There!

I’ve been a bit quiet about this on my blog until all the details were sorted out but I thought it was time to come clean: Yes, I’m going to be at the Resurgence Conference: Text and Context, February 2008 at Mars Hill Church, Seattle! An amazingly gracious sponsor has helped me to get over to the States and attend this conference. I’m going to also have the opportunity of meeting with a number of different people involved in church planting – some of them connected to the Acts 29 Network – which is probably my main aim in this trip. I’m quite excited about possibly linking up with A29 for future church plants here in South Africa.

I’m looking forward to also attending two churches in the States that we, here in South Africa, don’t really have anything similar to. I’m spending one Sunday in St. Louis at the Journey Church pastored by Darrin Patrick and then spending the following Sunday at Mars Hill Church in Seattle pastored by Mark Driscoll.

What I’d like from the peeps out there is to make contact with as many people I can who read this blog and will also be attending the Resurgence Conference. I’d love to catch up with you guys – especially those of you who write blogs. I thought that rather than emailing each of you individually I’d just stick this notice up as a post instead. Please let me know if you’ll be there so I can look out for you.

See some of you soon…

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).