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!

The Acid Test of Prayer

This morning I prayed for longer than I usually do. This evening I prayed with my fiancee about our future together in ministry. On Sunday I listened again to some of Matt Chandler’s second talk from the Resurgence Conference entitled ‘Vision of a Church Planter‘. There’s a section of the talk where Matt pleads with us prospective church planters that we would hunger and thirst for the glory of God that is in Christ. He draws out examples from the Psalms, the New Testament and even the experiences of Christians throughout history who have longed to feel the weight of the glory of God upon them in their ministry. I long for that – I long that it wouldn’t be such a fleeting experience in my own life.

What can we do when we aren’t consumed by the glory of Christ? What can we do when nail pierced hands and a thorn pierced brow no longer move us? What can we do when we look upon a beautiful sunset and forget the hand that formed it? The only right response that we can muster is to pray. We can but plead before God that he would force his full weight upon us and overwhelm us with a sense of his glory. We can only pray. Prayer then is the acid test for a life that seeks the glory of God. Prayer is the measure by which our spirituality stands or falls. I acknowledge that in an objective sense our spirituality is measured exclusively by an act of grace that took place on a cross 2000 years ago but prayer is the measure of how much our favourable response to that grace has been entrenched in our being.

Lord I pray that you would cause us to pray like the redeemed.

Matt Chandler – Filling the Gap of Eternity

States Reflection #4 – Matt Chandler

From a ‘listening to speakers’ point of view Matt Chandler was my highlight. Driscoll, Piper and Mahaney were all brilliant, but for my money, Chandler stole the show. At one stage during the conference I remember feeling exhausted, and close to skipping a session, but then looking at the schedule to see who was next and it was Chandler – needles to say I  stayed and listened. He had brilliant wisdom, for a pretty young guy, and he was purposefully passionate about the content of his message which really just boiled down to: preach the gospel.
Matt Chandler pastors the Village Church in Dallas and knows a thing or two about how to reach nominally ‘evangelical’ Christians with the gospel. Being in Dallas he ministers in what he calls ‘the center of the evangelical world’ – the only problem he sees is that this center has lost the gospel message of Jesus as its true center.

I wonder if he doesn’t have a word or two for a country like South Africa that still has a fairly large ‘evangelical’ churchy hangover? Go snoop around his church’s website and download some of his talks from their sermon library.

I’m off to join the ‘Matt Chandler is my Homeboy’ group on Facebook…

On a Journey – Part IX

Don’t have time to write much other than to say that yesterday Matt Chandler and John Piper blew our socks off. Make sure you go and download all the talks from the Resurgence site and keep up to date with what’s happening through the day by checking out Justin Buzzard’s blog.

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).

Resurgence Conference

Gary Shavey has details on the 2008 Resurgence Conference entitled ‘Text and Context‘. This is such a great topic and something I’ve been thinking about a lot. Now I know us readers in South Africa probably won’t be going over to Seattle anytime soon (unless of course someone out there wants to buy me a plane ticket?) but the talks of the conference usually get posted online and so will be something to look forward. The speakers include Mark Driscoll, John Piper, Jill Gilmore and Matt Chandler. Go over and check it out – there’s a cool little video too.