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!

Communities Led by Teachers

“If we want to create communities with a missional mindset, we cannot allow our churches to be held back because of a lack of professional pastoral leadership. Every believer is called to missions, regardless of a more specific vocational calling. Equipping more laypeople to lead ministries and churches is exactly what Ephesians 4:11-13 describes.

The Bible goes into too much detail about pastor/elders not to assume they were a normal part of the local church. But the qualifications are those of a godly person with one exception. The godly person must be ‘able to teach’. Beyond the standards of godliness, that is the biblical qualification for a layperson functioning as a pastoral leader in a church plant.” Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches, p.78

If we’re developing missional communities that, for all intensive purposes, function as small churches in a network with each other, maybe united by a central Sunday gathering, then surely all missional community leaders must be able to teach. If the leader is not able to teach then is the missional community really a self-contained church formed and led by the Word of God?

I know that some guys (even in the more theologically conservative wing) in the missional community movement don’t think that the leaders of individual missional communities need to be elders but I think that’s something of a contradiction in terms. They want their missional communities to function as micro-churches but they don’t want them led by elders. I can’t see how you can get away from it: not elder-led=not biblical church. I know there are other ways to ‘lead’ and numerous different ways in which non-bible teachers in a church ‘lead’ others but at the core of biblical ecclesiology is elder leadership which is, as Stetzer points out, a teaching leadership. Or am I missing something here?

Missional Link Monday

Rick Meigs, the dude behind ‘Friend of Missional‘, has launched a synchroblog around the word ‘missional’ which he contends is in need of reclaiming and definition. 50 other bloggers will be posting their contributions on their own blogs during the course of today. Rick’s own contribution can be found here. I didn’t sign up for the synchroblog but I thought I’d point you around to some of the contributions.

South Africa’s very own Steve Hayes, Arnau van Wyngaard and Cobus van Wyngaard have both made contributions. Perhaps its quite significant that out of 50 ‘missional’ bloggers 3 are South African – maybe 3 and a half if you count Alan Hirsch There are probably at least between 5 and 10 other South African bloggers who could have been able to contribute to this synchroblog which suggests to me that the ‘missional’ conversation in South Africa is moving forward.

Out of all the contributions I most enjoyed Alan Hirsch’s and Brad Brisco’s. I found these two paragraphs from Brad very helpful:

“The church must move far beyond measuring success by the traditional indicators of attendance, buildings and cash. Instead we must create new scorecards to measure ministry effectiveness. These new scorecards will include measurements that point to the church’s impact on community transformation rather than measuring what is happening among church members inside the church walls.

A missional church may ask how many hours has the church spent praying for community issues? How many hours have church members (including staff) spent with unbelievers? How many community groups use the facilities of the church? How many people are healthier because of the clinic the church operates? How many people are in new jobs because of free job training offered by the church? What is the number of school children who are getting better grades because of after-school tutoring the church provides. Or how many times do community leaders call the church asking for advice?”

I would caution though that there are other traditional indicators – other than buildings, cash and attendance – that should and must remain in place. Indicators like praying and caring for the sick and spiritually struggling members within the church, commitment to personal bible reading and prayer, meeting together to study the scriptures and pray etc. These indicators still ‘happen in the church’ but they are important. The church’s impact on those outside is not the only indicator – in fact Paul in the letter to the Galatians seems to imply that doing good to all but especially those ‘inside’ is the best indicator. Nevertheless Brad does well in re-orientating our scoreboards.

What’s my take on the whole ‘missional’ thing? I’m pretty much where Alan Hirsch is in his contribution. Like him, and apparently Ed Stetzer and Tim Keller too, I think there’s a difference between the aims of the emerging church and the concept ‘missional’. Like him I do not primarily see ‘missional’ as something that radically alters my theological convictions but rather something that gives focus and direction to those convictions. Like him, I think that ‘missional’ is intrinsically linked with ‘incarnational’ (although I might be a little bit broader than him with regards to my understanding of ‘missional-attractional’ and why it can still be ‘missional’ – maybe, I don’t know). Like him, I think its important that we retain that core understanding of ‘missional’.

Stetzer on Missional Attitude

“Missional living is not specific to a form of worship or liturgy. But it is specific to the attitude an individual Christian or church takes.” – Ed Stetzer in an interview with Alan Hirsch about his new book, ‘Compelled by Love: The Most Excellent Way to Missional Living‘.

Dwell Conference Audio

Some of the friends that I made when in the States recently attended the Dwell Conference in New York City. There they got to listen to the likes of Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll, Ed Stetzer, Darrin Patrick and others on missional church planting and related subjects. All the audio from the conference is now available at the Acts29 website.

Stetzer on the Kingdom of God

Ed Stetzer is amazing in how he blends, so effortlessly, his conservative theology with serious contextualization and missionary endeavour. Today he has some warnings for us who would reclaim the use of ‘kingdom’ langauge. Here’s a preview:

“It would be a tragedy if we failed to learn that the last group that used the Kingdom of God to talk of justice often forgot to talk of Jesus.“

Ed Stetzer is Legend!

Forget Will Smith, I’ve just started listening to those church planting talks and I started with Ed Stetzer’s talk ‘Kingdom-Focused Church Planting’, it was insane (that means ‘really really good’ in South African surfer lingo)! He does a really effective job of calling all prospective church planters back to the Cross as their supreme motivation – its masterful. Go and listen now!

Church Planting Audio

The talks from the recent Acts29 Boot Camp are available at their website. They include talks by Mark Dever, Ed Stetzer, Darrin Patrick and Mark Driscoll. Definitely worth checking out!

(HT – Justin Taylor)

Convergent Audio

Denny Burke has all the audio from the recent Convergent Conference at South Eastern Baptist Seminary. It includes a very thought-provoking talk by Mark Driscoll about his relationship to and views on certain key figures in the emerging church conversation.

Links for Thursday

Drew Goodmanson has some more great stuff on Church Planting, and what to do with more established churches.

How to cure writer’s block – some tips.

Chris talks about beating the wife of Christ, with some insight from Ed Stetzer

…and best news of the day: Sulky Jose has left Chelsea and the English Premiership.