The Bible Story in Pictures

I did these for my high school chaplaincy students. It's amazingly difficult to tell the Bible story in a lunch break!

Sunday Morning Evangelism

It's worth posting this one again...

"Sunday morning in church is the one place where evangelism cannot take place in our generation because the lost are not there..." - from "Everyday Church," by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis

Review: Why Men Hate Going to Church

David Murrow begins this book with the harsh reality that most churches have fewer men than women, and because of this and various other reasons, church has gradually grown to reflect this. Church has largely become a place where women are comfortable and men are not. And thus begins a downward spiral. Church becomes slowly more feminine in its style because of the higher proportion of women, and as it does, men become less comfortable and men's numbers dwindle, which makes the church more feminine, which makes....

Although the descriptions of men/women seem a little exaggerated (not every man likes baseball and chainsaws) there are lots of helpful insights, advice on how to do church with men in mind, ways we are unintentionally marginalising men, and other practical tips.

I learnt a lot from this book. I'd really recommend it to any church leader. Church needs men. Especially now. It was Jesus' simplest strategy, and as Murrow points out: where there are men, the women, children and young people will want to be there too.

An interesting tidbit from the book to finish on (there's loads of research to back it all up)...

• When Mom is a regular churchgoer but Dad attends infrequently (or never), just 2 to 3 percent of their kids go on to become regular churchgoers.
• When both Mom and Dad attend church regularly, 33 percent of kids grow up as regular attendees.
• Here’s the shocker: when Dad is faithful but Mom never attends, 44 percent of the kids end up as regular churchgoers. This is the highest outcome of any scenario.

Read that again.

Jesus' Dream Now on Amazon

Quick update. Pretty self-explanatory if you read the post title. The short course/discussion series on Jesus that I've written this year is now available on Amazon, for any Kindle devices.

Check it out here...

Jesus' Dream: an intro to Jesus in six sessions

Love to hear your thoughts! Thanks.

Ben

Jesus Dream Short Course

Why is Jesus so important? What on earth was he on about?

Last year I became friends with a guy who wanted to know more about Jesus. I didn't want to just give him a book about it, and I thought the best thing would be for us to lock in a time each week, have a coffee, and go through one of those new-Christian discussion guides. But when I looked at what was available, I didn't find any that I thought would work well for an everyday Aussie guy - especially someone who hasn't grown up in a church (which is most Aussies now).

The ones I found were either too long (who will commit to a 10week religious course?), too impractical (watching a 40min sermon is not a normal thing for non-church people), too advanced (using theological concepts that are only familiar to people who've grown up in church) or misrepresented Jesus or the gospel. Some I felt just started in entirely the wrong place for non- church people (like calling for a commitment in the first session or starting with "you're a sinner" - which Jesus never did).

In the end I thought I'd just start the conversations myself and see where it went. In the process, through the conversations, questions and inevitable extra research by me, I ended up discovering a lot more about Aussie culture and about Jesus and his way of life. Most of all, I've discovered that Jesus and his way of life fits our culture to a T. He's the kind of guy that Aussies - even Aussie males - really respect.

So this year I've put together my own short course on Jesus that aims to fit Aussie non-church culture better. It starts where Jesus himself started, by calling people to dream with him about a new world. A better world of beauty and colour, free of pain and disaster, full of hope and light, creativity and passion, food and fun. It was a brilliant place to start, by a brilliant, visionary, revolutionary leader. So I figured I couldn't do better than start there myself. Jesus' dream is something we can all relate to.

This short course looks at Jesus' dream, his inspiring way of life and his amazing story. It's in six sessions for small groups or individuals.

After months of writing, editing and formatting, it's finally available on the iTunes iBookstore. Here's the link to the ePub version (which will work on most devices). And there's also a version specially designed for iPads.

http://itunes.apple.com/au/book/jesus-dream/id565908659?mt=11

Please go and check it out! I'd love to hear your thoughts. There's even a sample chapter there for free. And if you're using it somewhere other than Australia, I'd be especially interested to know how it goes. Thanks!

Church Size

From Lloyd Pietersen's "Reading the Bible After Christendom"....

"I am privileged to belong to Bristol Peace Church, a small group of currently six people, who meet every Sunday at 5.00pm... At the heart of the liturgy is Bible study and this is followed by a period of prayer informed by that Bible study; we then conclude with a meal together... As eating is central to our ecclesiology, we are committed not to grow beyond a number that can fit round the meal table. Further growth would result in breaking into two groups...."

Ha! My church is twice the size of yours Pietersen.