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 Journey in the New York Times

There’s so much good stuff going on in this church that even the NYT has to sit up and take a look. I had such a great time with these guys in February and I’m so stoked they’re getting this sort of press. Plus it was cool to see a pic of the Schlafly Bottleworks – I hope I get to go back and visit some day. Keep up the good work.

(HT – Jason)

They Won’t Go to Church but they Like “Churchiness”

This is remarkable – according to a survey conducted by LifeWay Research people who don’t go to church are generally turned off by the more utilitarian church buildings and prefer buildings that look more like medieval cathedrals than contemporary church buildings. The unchurched like churchiness – you’ve gotta love that! I wonder if the peeps at the Journey knew about that when they bought the old Roman Catholic church that now houses their Tower Grove congregation (in the pic above)?

(HT – Jason)

States Reflection #1 – Church Planting

So I suppose its time for me to share a few reflections from my time in the USA. I thought I’d do it by looking at a few topics that came to the fore as I travelled through St Louis and Seattle. The first and most obvious thing that struck me, and was part of the reason I was over there, was the enthusiasm for church planting that seemed to be abounding in certain places.

Being at place like the Journey and then finding out that its only half a decade old really made me marvel at the desire of many young gospel workers in the States to see new churches planted and developed. There was an infectious enthusiasm portrayed by every single person that I met with who was involved in Acts 29 every time the subject of church planting was on the table. They were also always super keen to hear about potential planting opportunities in South Africa. If I can in anyway be used by God to bring some of that infectious enthusiasm to the young gospel workers here in South Africa then this trip will have been entirely worth it.

I was especially delighted to find out how rigorous the assessment process is at Acts 29 for prospective church planters. These guys are determined to see church plants succeed and that means that they want to see real evidence of godliness, gospel-centeredness, theological depth and leadership in any individual that is applying to plant churches with them. In many ways I came away worshipping God for the way he is spurring young men into action for the glory of his name as displayed in his church.

I would really like to see Acts 29 have a presence here in South Africa bringing like minded people together, across denominational lines, to plant gospel-centered and culturally engaging churches and I’m hoping that the meetings I had with various people will have gone a long way to making that a possibility. We still have a way to go but the ball is rolling now.

On a Journey – Part IV

Meetings, meetings, meetings – that’s what I’ve been up to yesterday and am about to leave for today. Yesterday I met up with Jonathan McIntosh and Dan Herron who are both involved with both Acts29 and the Journey – two really great gospel guys. We had an amazing afternoon chatting about church planting and South Africa. They were really keen and excited to hear about the SA church scene and the potential for planting. They’ve helped to set up a meeting for me with Mike Gunn who is the international director of Acts29 when I get to Seattle.

Earlier in the day I went to a lecture by Hans Baier at Covenant Seminary. It was a really interesting lecture on the sermon of Acts 2 and the Old Testament background. Had a look around the library last night and my bibliophile tendencies started to run on overdrive!

Today I’m off to hang out with another Acts 29 planter and to see some of the social work that the Journey are doing in St Louis. As usual its freezing outside and its supposed to snow again tomorrow.

On a Journey – Part II

It started snowing a few minutes ago! I was watching the weather this morning and it looks like its going to be a pretty chilly week. Yesterday I did the church rounds. We changed the original plan because we’d already heard Darrin Patrick preach the same sermon twice and even though Darrin rocks we decided to check out the ‘other’ side of American Christianity. So last night I went to Twin Oaks Presbyterian Church (PCA). Twin Oaks has fairly strong ties to the Bible Institute of South Africa and so because I knew of it I went along to visit a service. So here are my thoughts…

First off I’m still trying to get used to these massive church buildings everywhere – it creates a serious ‘religious’ feel to the whole place. The service was a really formal service reading pslams and singing from the hymnbook – although they did have a Matt Redman song and a Chris Tomlin song, but they sang them a bit like hymns anyway. Now I’ve attended my fair share of formal and conservative churches (especially a number of prayerbook services in the Church of England in South Africa) but this just seemed way more formal than anything I’d ever been to before. The roof of the place was almost in the heavens, everything seemed to have these ‘gold’ furnishings, the pulpit look like the bridge on the Starship Enterprise and the pastor sat in an elaborate red chair on the stage through most of the service. Now I don’t want to knock Twin Oaks – in fact I have a number of friends who’ve been members there plus they give an absolute ton to foreign mission – but it just hit home to me how different church is in America to South Africa. It also made me understand the emerging conversation with fresh perspective – in fact I came away wondering why there are any emerging people in South Africa at all, in some ways we’ve got a whole lot less to emerge out of than they do over here.

It was a night and day distinction with the Journey service that I attended in the morning where everything was relaxed, fresh and engaging – basically very non-religious and informal. I suddenly felt quite good about where a number of our CESA (Church of England in South Africa) churches are at.

Today I’m off to have a drink with Chris Gensheer who is a regular visitor to this blog and has his own blog over at Intersection. I’m also going to tag along with Chris tonight to some lectures at Covenant Seminary – should be interesting.

Sun has come out now – the snow is already melting. I’ll have to wait a bit longer to make my snow angel!

On a Journey – Part I

Excuse the terrible pun in the title. Its almost 9am in St Louis on Sunday morning as I write this. I arrived yesterday, late morning after a marathon series of flights (Cape Town to Joburg to Dakar to Atlanta to St Louis). There was no time to rest yesterday as I had lunch with my hosts at Covenant Seminary before heading off to a new Saturday evening service the Journey has started at Tower Grove. So I shrugged off the sleep and went along – and I’m so glad I did.

The service was great it had a really simple, informal and authentic feel to it. As can be expected it was a fairly young congregation. They made really good use of multimedia so that it wasn’t overpowering but it was really well done. The music was simple – one guy playing a guitar and singing, another guy singing and a third guy playing a bongo drum of sorts. Darrin Patrick preached for about 40 minutes on the life of Jacob in Genesis in a really low-key, relaxed but engaging and entertaining manner. It was really refreshing. Today I’m going to two/three more Journey services.

Its easy to see why so many younger people appreciate what the Journey is doing here because the place is completely full of massive churches – baptist, lutheran, mormon, assemblies of God – they’re just everywhere and I can imagine they create something of a very ‘churchy’ culture. But along comes the Journey with its real authentic and relaxed feel to refresh to local church scene.

Other than that I had pizza at one of those Elvis type diners last night – real American!

So here ends part I – stayed tuned for some intermittent blogging…

Almost on My Way…to the Journey

On Friday I’m off to the States for two weeks. This coming Sunday I’m going to fellowshipping at the Journey church in St Louis. The Journey is part of the Acts 29 Network and is pastored by the extremely fresh and dynamic Darrin Patrick, who also happens to be the vice-president of Acts 29. On the following Tuesday I’m going to get the chance to meet up with some of the staff from the Journey as they talk me through how their multi-campus church operates. Go over to their church website and check them out.

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…