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!

Created for Community

I’ve posted the sermon I preached on Sunday morning at The Message Church in Mowbray, Cape Town, entitled ‘Created for Community’. If you want to know what I think about the concept of community and its relation to the Christian church then have a listen. Please note that my ideas are not really all that original – I’ve borrowed a ton from people who have influenced me like Tim Chester and Steve Timmis as well as, I think, simply saying what seems obvious to me in the Scriptures. Some feedback would be great…

Monergism’s Mp3 Library

Check out Monergism‘s extensive and revamped Mp3 library. There’s enough there to keep you going for a long time.

(HT – Challies)

Goldsworthy Talks

Justin Taylor has links to three talks that Graeme Goldsworthy gave at Southern Seminary on the subject of Biblical Theology.

Resurgence Audio Available

All the audio from the Resurgence Conference that I attended is now available online.

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)

Keller Sermons

Steve McCoy points us to some more great Tim Keller sermons. This time they’re a bunch of sermons related to his up and coming book.

The Don on Jeremiah

A friend of mine has just attended the @the Castle young adults bible teaching conference in Northern Ireland and this morning I woke to find that the talks from the conference have been posted online. There are 5 talks on Jeremiah and a bonus talk by the title ‘What is the Gospel‘ all by Don Carson. You can access them all here along with talks from previous @the Castle conferences.

Patrick on the Emerging Church

Check out Darrin Patrick’s talk, The History and Streams of the Emerging Church, given at Covenant Seminary on the 22nd October 2007. Darrin Patrick is the pastor of the Journey in St. Louis and an important member of the Acts 29 church planting network.

(HT – Steve McCoy)

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.

Podcast Here I Come

I’ve finally set up a podcast for sermons and talks that I’ve given recently or will in the future. You can access the podcast here. My first podcast is in keeping with the theme of community that I’ve been posting about recently. It’s a sermon that I gave a month ago at St Stephen’s on Philippians 2:19-30, entitled ‘When the Gospel Works’. You can download it here. Or go to the podacst itself for feed and subscription details.

@the Castle Talks

Andy Gemmill’s talks on the book of James from the recent @the Castle conference are now available on-line.

Timmis talks to Acts 29

One of my favourite missional thinkers, Steve Timmis, recently gave a talk at the Acts 29 Seattle boot camp. He spoke on ‘Gospel-Driven Church Planting‘. You can get the audio here. (HT – Ant Adams).

Gospel for Believers

I grew up in church with an unhealthy paradigm in my mind. It went something along these lines: The gospel is for unbelievers, they need to hear it and then come to faith. Once they’ve come to faith then they mature and they start to learn doctrine.

And so when a minister, who is now a friend of mine, told me that he preached the gospel every Sunday I was a bit concerned – how would his congregation mature? There were two problems with my thinking – I saw the gospel as too small, I basically equated the formula that you’ll find on some ‘old school’ evangelism tract with the gospel. I needed a bigger picture of the gospel. Secondly, and following on, I disconnected doctrine or teaching from the gospel – I didn’t see the two as naturally compatible. It took me a while to work through these things until I got to the point, where I’m still at, where I can’t conceive opening the Bible to any audience without teaching the gospel.

Now the reason for this little  admission is because I’ve finally gotten round to listening to those Tim Keller talks that I mentioned a few weeks ago and I’ve decided (yes I who make all dogmatic decisions) that Tim Keller is best preacher of the gospel to believers that I’ve ever heard. So if you’re wondering how to apply the gospel to believers go download the talks – in fact download everything you can find of Tim Keller’s and listen to it carefully, and let a master teach you about THE master.

Tim Keller Talks

Here’s a link to three talks that Tim Keller gave yesterday on the subject of ‘The Cross’.

(HT – Steve McCoy)