Tasmanian Christians have a lot to give their mainland brothers and sisters

Having now had a bit to do with 4 mainland Bible/Theological Colleges I really think Tasmanians have a lot to offer them. And I think it's because we don't have to toe a party line. Unless we are intending to stay and work in the system which supports the college at which we're studying, we can play a bit looser. That's refreshing for them because Sydney and Melbourne Evangelicals take themselves a bit too seriously sometimes.

The great thing about swanning in, studying, and then swanning out again is that we can be completely ourselves and not worry too much about being politically correct.

But. I have had a few comments from non Tasmanian students at MTC and SMBC that Tasmanians can appear a bit up themselves and insular. We sometimes take ourselves too seriously as well at times. "In Tassie we do this ..." "In Tassie we wouldn't do that...." And because some of us are so determined to leave college and get back to Tassie, the impression is given that we aren't that interested in others. There can be a bit of a tendency not to mix too well with the locals when we're away from home.

So I guess there is a balance we need to keep between, on the one hand, being out and proud Tasmanians who have something to offer the others, and, on the other, fellow travellers a long way from our true home who value relationships over tribalism.

Vision 100 Video Briefing: Recruiting for Ministry

Video Briefing 2: Recruiting People for Ministry from Vision100 on Vimeo.

Five days to go to register for In the Chute

Are you one of those people who tends to leave everything to the last minute? Know someone keen to church plant who is a little like that? Then this reminder is for you.

Registrations for our first In The Chute conference close in five days. That's right, the doors close on Sunday November 29. So don't miss your chance to:

• Hear key Christian leaders (Al Stewart, Jim Wallace) and church planters (Andrew Heard, Paul Dale) talk on the nuts and bolts of ministry in Australia
• Meet up with other Christians determined to plant new congregations
• Be assessed as a church planter by The Geneva Push

Getting there couldn't be simpler. Just click here to register for In The Chute online.

MTS National Graduation

The other day was the MTS National Graduation. A stack of graduating apprentices from around the country attended a graduation event in Sydney. Those who were finishing MTS apprenticeships that year but couldn't attend the ceremony had their names read out also.

Each graduate received a baton with 2Timothy 2:2, 2009 engraved on them to reinforce that ministry training is their lifetime calling. Awesome idea, huh?

Current Tassies going to In the Chute

Geneva's first national conference.

Ross Nicholson, Rob Stanley, Nickand Bron Bultman, Alan Reader and me.

Why don't you join us? It'll be rockin.

Scripture in Schools 2010

Paul Chew currently heads up a team that goes into Albuera Street Primary for half an hour once a week during the school term.  They've had a good run and will be continuing the program into 2010.  Paul and I will also be starting on another day something very simimlar but at Princess Street Primary.  If your interested in cutting your teeth on some schools ministry at either school, feel free to contact either Paul or myself.

Get amongst it

Mikey did a post on his blog about getting involved in a ministry outside your local church. It's such good advice and it's such an important thing to take an active role/concern in ministry beyond your patch. So I was thinking about how I could be involved and I was wondering, what opportunities are there in Hobart for participating in these kinds of ministry? Here are some of the ones I know about, I'd love it if you could add more in the comments.

• School scripture classes (I think Paul Chew is looking to get this happening more widely)
• Occasional preaching gigs
• MTS Challenge Committee
• AFES Area Committee
• Tear?
  
• FOCUS?

Original languages

Click here for Fiona's wisdom about learning Ancient Greek and Hebrew.

Shiftwork

People in church leadership have a tendency to assume that if someone fails to show up to church each Sunday their faith's a little flaky. My tendency is not to worry so much about their faith (sadly), but to feel they're being disloyal. But for shiftworkers - and all sorts of other people - attendance is unlikely to be a measure of either faith or loyalty. So we need to be careful to find out where people are really at. We need to seek their input and invite them to things like the MTS Challenge conference. And we need to be creative and kind in helping them get the fellowship and teaching they so often miss.

H/T Lisa

I like ministry with people

A mildly provocative ramble about who I'm best suited to do ministry with:

It's difficult to say now because my circumstances might change once I'm up to my arm-pits in ministry but I prefer ministry with people.  Never really the coolest kid at school I always found being a high school teacher mildly amusing because here I was on the other side of the blackboard seeing it all play out.  I find it very difficult to be trendy, and so doing 'yooth' ministry is very daunting for me.  I actually really enjoy the challenges of working with old people, they have interesting stories, sometimes really surprise me and can be very encouraging. Children are fine because they don't know yet that your not cool, or they are easy to trick into believing that your trendier then you really are.  I don't mind ministry to intelligent or successful people or hard on their luck people, because generally they don't mind my questioning, slightly geeky and intense manner.  However trendy people of any type or age, I find alot more draining.  It still might work, and some of my friends, readers of this very blog I'd regard as cool and gracious! (Keep it up, the Kingdom needs you! You can fill the gap where I can't.)   It's taken me a while to realise God's allowed my life to play out in a certain way which makes me suitable to work with particular groups of people.  Sometimes I may need to memorize stuff about AFL or Eminem to cross cultural boundaries but being myself, as long as I'm bearing spiritual fruit, is important.  I'm looking forward to ministry!

h/t Al Bain here.

Recommended reading

I got to talk to Andrew Heard when he was down for the Vision 100 conference. One of his many helpful pieces of advice to me was:

'Each year read 3 books about theology and 1 about leadership'

It's made me think about my reading habits. I've always been into fiction, I tend to read theology when it's recommended, history and biography whenever I can and commentaries when I have to. I also love me some puritan writing. Leadership, ethics and social/political commentary type stuff has been pretty much off my radar. MTC has been good because I've had to read things that I otherwise wouldn't and it's given me a list of books to read that should keep me going for a long time.

What are your reading habits? Do you have any recommendations for me on the subject of leadership?