Tony Jones, the national coordinator of Emergent Village in the USA, is visiting Queensland in October in conjunction with his sessions at Black Stump in NSW.
Tony has a background in youth ministry, Christian spirituality, postmodernism and the emerging church and will be picking up some of these themes. Tony’s approach will be focused on conversation rather than lecturing. See more on his blog, tonyj.net.
Mark Driscoll, known for his role as pastor at Mars Hill Church, Seattle, is visiting Brisbane in August. He’s speaking at Burn Your Plastic Jesus, a men-only event being run by 300 Men for Jesus. He’ll also be speaking on Biblical Theology of Mission at Queensland Theological College, the Presbyterian theological college in Brisbane.
Mark is described in the promotional material as a “theologically conservative and culturally liberal” pastor, holding Scripture firmly in two hands, while grounding two feet firmly in his culture.
Driscoll is disturbed by those who view Jesus as a “limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in His hair, who drank decaf and made pithy Zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes.” Mark’s keen on cultural relevance and clearly has a commitment to reaching the “man’s man” culture by using strong language, wearing trousers (as do most men I know), using firm handshakes, using just shampoo, and drinking strong coffee.
“In Revelation, Jesus is a prize fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up. I fear some are becoming more cultural than Christian, and without a big Jesus who has authority and hates sin as revealed in the Bible, we will have less and less Christians, and more and more confused, spiritually self-righteous blogger critics of Christianity”. (Relevant Magazine)
The open agenda here is that Mark is distancing himself from his earlier emerging church days hanging around with the likes of Doug Pagitt and Brian McLaren in the Young Leader Network (now known as Emergent).
Mark is known for his complementarian views. He teaches that men should practice headship and women should practice submission. Mars Hill Church has a policy of having only men in positions of authority or leadership. That’s a policy consistent with the Presbyterian Church of Australia. What concerns me is that this view is presented as the norm for the Reformed tradition. Most denominations within that tradition have moved on in more recent times - as can be explored in the World Alliance of Reformed Churches site.
The Burn Your Plastic Jesus event is being run by Mitchelton Presbyterian Church on Thursday, 28 August at Northside Auditorium, 151 Flockton St, Everton Park. See the 300 Men For Jesus site for more details. See Mark’s Wikipedia article and Resurgence Blog.
I’ve just set up a new YouTube channel for the Queensland Synod, Uniting Church in Australia. Journey TV is an extension of Journey the magazine and Journey Online.
Pastors of the Future
The first video is a video I produced for the 2006 General Assembly to explain a new approach to commissioning and training lay pastors in the Uniting Church. Helen (Ennis) and Gary (myself) talk about what it’s like to be a pastor in 2012, looking back over four years of support, recognition and training.
The phrase, “From time to time and place to place” comes from the Uniting Church’s Basis of Union. It was the inspiration (you could sing it) for the brief musical piece I wrote for the beginning, middle and end of the video.
“The Uniting Church recognises that the type and duration of ministries to which women and men are called vary from time to time and place to place, and that in particular it comes into being in a period of reconsideration of traditional forms of the ministry, and of renewed participation of all the people of God in the preaching of the Word, the administration of the sacraments, the building up of the fellowship in mutual love, in commitment to Christ’s mission, and in service of the world for which he died.”
Vinni’s Yard
The second video is a sample from Enhance, a collection of Flash-based videos put together by Michael Jeffery and his team at Digistry. This clip retells Jesus’ Parable of the Vineyard (Matthew 21:33-46, Mark 12:1-12, Luke 20:9-19) through the lens of The Godfather. The script and music are by Joh Knijnenburg. I’m now working on a YouTube channel for Digistry.
Duncan Macleod posts on life, faith and culture in Australia, drawing from his involvement in the creative industry, the Uniting Church, the blogosphere, generational research, the emerging church and life on the Gold Coast.
Tony Jones, the national coordinator of Emergent Village in the USA, is visiting Queensland in October in conjunction with his sessions at Black Stump in NSW.
