So having compared Sydney (pt.1) and Adelaide (pt.2) noting the link between diocese/bible college and church what would you do to turn things around? what would it take to hit the brakes on losing and tap the accelerator toward winning a city like Adelaide?

Try to takeover the diocese or reform the college? I’m not so sure… Aside from the obvious difficulties in such an undertaking it’s not really the problem. It’s not an organisational/structural problem at heart but a theological problem. I’ll fill this out in other posts…

But first: I touched on prayer and recognition of the Lord’s work last time and I want to expand on that a bit more.

It seems that praying is exactly what Jesus would do (wjwd?* a new accessory range?) in this situation – specifically praying for the provision of Bible teaching under-shepherds.

Matthew 9:36ff comes to mind:

³⁶When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. ³⁸Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

[after which Jesus sends them to the towns to be itinerant preachers and pastors]

At least part of the problem in a place like Adelaide is that sheep are in desperate need of shepherds. But more than that – they need legitimate shepherds. shepherds who submit themselves to Jesus the Chief shepherd. Shepherds who are raised up and appointed by the Lord. Men who will seek out, love and teach Jesus’ sheep.

In many cases there are real Christians in churches being led by people who are not really Christians themselves! They, like the israelites, are ‘harassed and helpless’…but when they do come across genuine christian leadership and biblical teaching they very often thrive. They also wonder how they had lived without it for so long.

In Jesus’ logic the problem to shepherdless sheep is more harvesters. More Bible-teaching pastors.

If winning a city is in anyway like bringing in a harvest (and I think it is) then i’ll pray as Jesus recommends: for more harvesters. That way Sheep in churches get shepherds and sheep who are currentlyout on walkabout will be called home.

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*Apologies for the following Moore ‘in joke’: this still works as a John Woodhouse reference.

See if you can really tell the differences between your search engine results…

http://mashable.com/2009/06/07/blindsearch/

Not sure if you’ve come across these interactive youtube clips yet…but you gotta have a go at Barack, paper, scissors. (the clip above is just one level – more at the link)

He uses the ‘old hat’ meta strategy quite a lot – beware!

via::buzzfeed.com

following on from part 1.

Sydney is an interesting example of church, diocese and bible college working together. The story is somewhat different in Adelaide! Generally there is little or no cohesion between a denomination’s Churches/Diocese/Bible Colleges. Or where there is cohesion it is around a different gospel. This has set churches in the ‘city of churches’ toward serious decline and unfaithfulness.

Losing the city

The church is best evidence of Jesus’ saving work in a city (it’s what he’s building after all), and the best way to kill it is to lose the other members of the church/diocese/bible college ‘trinity’.

Teach liberal theology in the Bible college and in a generation churches will no longer be shepherded by faithful men. People in those churches, like their leaders won’t know their right hand and from their left. The city will not hear the call to salvation since there will be no call!

Lose the Diocese to inept leaders or again liberalism and even if churches desire to advance the gospel, their efforts will be divided – always battling to be supported and resourced by a body which does not see the need for the gospel to be advanced. Each dances to the beat of a different drum…(which is not a good thing, in case you are wondering)

This inevitably leads to the loss of christian witness in a city. Jesus’ sheep are not cared for and many remain unsaved.

My experience of being in Sydney has been both exciting and frustrating when I think about church ‘back home’. On the one hand I’m pumped that there are churches in Adelaide who are praying and working with all they’ve got to turn the ‘ship around’ and win the city back. On the other i’m frustrated at the current weak state of the church knowing that it need not be as it is!

My time in Sydney has gotten me dreaming up ideas and with it enthusiasm to go about ‘fixing’ the problem. I’m an engineer at heart after all!

I just hope and pray that God will have compassion on people in Adelaide and bring fruit from the work of his laborers there.

Photos of some wacky suitcases.

My favourite is the portable scalectrix…

As many of you will know, Jodie and I have moved from Adelaide to Sydney for me to do a few years of study at Moore Theological College.

While I could have studied in Adelaide we opted to go on an ‘adventure’ hoping to see how things are done elsewhere in aus. I have to say it’s been a great experience! I’ve been enjoying the glimpse i’ve had into a city where church is done well.

There is obviously much more ‘winning’ to be done here in Sydney, but ‘winning the city’ is where the church is headed.*

Winning a city

Here’s one thing I notice about the Anglican church in Sydney: There is a kind of ‘holy trinity’ at work. The diocese, the Bible college and the churches.

As I see it what makes for strong churches here are that they are supported by both the Bible college (in training clergy+lay people) and the Diocese (in administration and so on). All three serve different functions but seek a common goal. They agree upon the gospel and work to see it advanced. What results from these three working in concert is something greater than one alone could achieve – in business speak there’s a ‘synergy‘ created.

The situation is a little different in SA…more in the next post.

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*I hope you’ll forgive the many unsubstantiated sweeping statements and generalisations in these posts!

I’ve heard that some people have found the chocolate mug cake to be a bit dry. I’ve tweaked it a bit and updated the original post.

You might also like to try the lemon mug cake – exclusive to reubenland.com!

A slightly quirky series coming at ya – ‘great snakes of the bible’. I’ll introduce you to a snake and talk up some of its skills.

This time, perhaps the most well known: the ‘crafty serpent’ in Genesis 3.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made.

This snake comes as a surprise in the Genesis narrative, not only because it speaks in words that humans understand (!) but because those words oppose the maker. They are false, and therefore evil words. The serpent is ‘made by God’ yet uses the language God has created against him! You might even say that while God creates with a word, this snake tries to un-create with his word…and very nearly succeeds.

Special skills: Speaking, deceiving and being generally crafty.

Got a request for next time? leave it in the comments!

We had ‘Apricot Chicken’ for tea tonight. Nothing fancy, but a bit of a fave of ours…I thought i’d recommend it to you because

1. It may bring back childhood memories – this was big in Australia in the 80′s apparently!

2. It is ultimately cheap

3. It is ultra easy

To feed two you need:

• 2 chicken marylands
• 1 400gm tin of halved apricots, liquid drained
• 1/2 – 3/4′s of a packet of french onion soup mix
• Some honey (to your taste,  i do one good squeeze of the bottle)
• Rice to serve

All you need to do is:

• Heat oven to 190C
• Remove the skin from the chicken
• Whack it in a dish
• Sprinkle soup mix over
• Tip apricots over
• Drizzle a bit of honey on top

Cook it for 45 mins covered. check if its done (no blood visible when you cut into the drumstick connection bit). enjoy!

Have been enjoying plenty of coffee thus far these holidays…giving me good opportunity to work on #76 on the list.

I’m reasonably happy with these two attempts – good enough to cross another one off the list anyway.

Behold: