Tag: Spur

The End is the Beginning

Ahh, the Smashing Pumpkins, what a band. Who’d have guessed that that title would stand the test of time and become the title of this post…

So, one more reflection from my sermon today and my thoughts on Matthew 9-10.

One of the other things I stressed was the urgency of the harvest – I picked up this little pointer from Tony Robowtham at Spur in Brisbane last week – but that I should have known given the family I married into – the language of the harvest is loaded with a sense of urgency.

It strikes me that your approach to evangelism is greatly influenced by your eschatology – how and when you think the world will end will profoundly effect how you live and how urgently you approach the task.

Given that I’m of the inclination that the world could end whenever God calls stumps – I’m inclined to priorities evangelism over things like caring for the planet. I can see how that’s a much greater concern if you’re a long term thinker. Probably not as profound as it seems in my head, but worth jotting down for when the idea resurfaces in my head in the future and I search for eschatology on my blog.

May 3, 2009

Spurious claim

Robyn and I went to a session of Spur on Saturday morning – Brisbane’s equivalent to whatever Sydney’s MTS conference is now called.

It was mind boggling. After a 4 year exile from Brisbane I knew almost nobody there. There’s been a complete generation change. It seems most of the guys of my generation are either doing ministry already, in theological education or doing some sort of MTS (and perhaps some have ruled it out).

That’s greatly encouraging – and is another prod that suggests college is the right thing for us next year. Enough thinking and talking – now it’s time for acting.

It must be said that the conference was “targeting” uni students so we didn’t quite fit the demograhpic.

The speaker was Townsville AFES staffworker Dave Walker – who used the pulpit to exhort and encourage the people there towards “reliability” – not flippancy or a reluctance to shoulder responsibility. He included a little dig about me in that – which was funny because we were in the back row, had arrived late, nobody knew we were there, and very few people knew who I was. It was like he assumed my notoriety still existed. Haha.

One memorable moment from his sermon though – that is worth recording for posterity – was his “first law of theodynamics” – which must surely rival “Walkers Ultimate 500” (still on the Wikipedia entry for 500) as one of the wisest things he’s ever come up with.

Roughly paraphrased it states:

“(Christian) Glory always follows suffering”…

Nice.

April 27, 2009