Down-under round-up: 2 March 2016

Issue of the week

I am sure most of us are tired of the gender debates, but it continues as an issue, so I simply offer up Murray Campbell’s ‘Observations and questions about Safe Schools’ and this comment: Imagine if someone had prepared an anti-bullying program for schools which used as examples of bullying a gay or lesbian kid, and a Muslim kid, and a nerdy kid, and a kid struggling with illiteracy, and a transgender kid, and an indigenous kid, and a kid on the autism spectrum, and a Jehovah’s Witness kid, and a deaf kid, and a refugee kid, and maybe even an upper class snobby kid, and then asked students to sympathise with them in their differences, and to discuss how to be sensitive towards them. You know, I don’t think there would be any problem at all!

Making disciples of Jesus

 Want to fire up your efforts in sharing your faith in the workplace? Then sign up for Craig Josling’s 40 Rockets over at the City Bible Forum. 40 Rockets is a program that sends you a text message every week for forty weeks.

The message contains an encouragement or tip to help you share Jesus in the workplace, plus a link to a one-page article with more information on the topic. Here’s an example:

Rocket: Leave something interesting on your work desk to start a good gospel conversation. Be ready to talk and change the item often. Read more: http://bit.ly/1lFOpBe

Here’s a kick up the pants from Sam McGeown and Wei Han Kuan, challenging our sometimes (often!?) limited horizons: ‘No, you’re not really missional’. I know Wei Han a little, but Sam is a new voice for me, and has a story that sounds fascinating. I hope we hear more from him via TGC Australia or elsewhere.

Thom Rainer shares ‘10 comments from happy church guests’, which might give you a little positive food for thought, action, or even change for welcomers, pastoral staff and all regular church members.

They say you can tell our modern secular idols from our most watched TV shows. If that’s the case, then Australia’s idols are:

• our homes (The Block and other renovation shows)
• our stomachs (Masterchef and My Kitchen Rules)
• fame (The Voice)
• sport, the biggest of all (grand finals, interstate football battles, world cups and horse races are all at the top of our most watched shows in Australia).

The US sounds little different, and so Todd Hill rightly asks himself and others, ‘Do Christian parents flirt with the idol of sports?’

And I cannot close without noting that Moore College—the place that had educated so many of Matthias Media’s authors and ministry friends—has turned 160.

I am so thankful to God for its impact on me and so many others. Under God, its lecturers, students, graduates, and support staff (including the chef!) certainly changed my life and shaped my ministry.

Image of the week

Challies shares a powerful quote from that old slave trader turned Anglican minister… reminds me of Psalm 119:67, 71.