Skinny Minnie

What is wrong with Minnie Mouse? Well obviously everything, she is a mouse, she is liked by children, her boyfriend (or is it her brother?) works on a steamboat, and therefore Minnie is obviously so passe in this hip high point of history in which we live. This is why Disney have decided to recreate her as a long legged, jetsetting, fashion obsessed, super consumer. No I am not joking, read more here.

Bricks and Breath

Here is my talk from the two Sundays ago at Trinity Grace Church in New York. In the talk I attempt to do a theological reading of the city based on the story of the builders of Babel found in the book of Genesis. You can listen here.

Warning this talk is highly offensive to people from Radelaide and could add to simmering post Grand Prix theft tensions. South Australian listener discretion advised.

Uber, Faith and Risk

A few years ago at a dinner I had a brief conversation with a leader who was visiting from overseas. They dropped a bomb shell in my lap by telling me that I was being reactive in my ministry instead of being proactive, and asking what God wanted me to do and following that call. I left the meeting with my head spinning. I had a good job in ministry, which paid me and let me have free reign on what I wanted to do. But I felt that God was calling me to take a leap of faith and to start a ministry which would focus on the intersection between faith and culture and particularly the whole area of young adult discipleship. I stuck my head into Sarah’s office who worked next door to me and asked her what she thought of my idea, instead of giving me advice, she asked where she could sign up.

We resigned from our jobs and started planning what this ministry could look like. We had no money, no wages, no idea of how to set up a ministry. We simply had made a leap of faith. This leap of faith turned into Uber. Our plan was to keep things quiet for the first six months. But things took off quickly and before we knew it we were getting requests to come and help Churches, NGO’s, School’s and ministries. The next three years were incredibly hard, both at a personal and financial level. There were many moments when we seriously discussed shutting the whole operation down. But the whole time God kept saying to us to keep going.

Today Uber has a significant voice into the Church in Australia, increasingly this voice is being heard overseas. Recently we did our stats for the year in terms of our output and this is what we have achieved in the last 12 months.

Produced 2 new manuals

Published 1 new book

Produced and released 1 new dvd

Released 1 on-line novella/Photography Project

Maintained blog

11 radio appearances

 

88 Speaking gigs

Run 2 Uber Seminars

 

The wholesale numbers are that this year we have impacted

10,570 people direct contact through speaking and consulting

217,000 + people though in-direct contact (blog, resources etc)  

 

All of this we have achieved with three people who work on Uber for two days a week each!

I have been thinking since I read these stats as to how we have been able to have such an impact. I think at the end of the day it comes down to a few things. Firstly we did not ‘chase it’, when we started Uber, we were not trying to ‘get on the speaking circuit’. We initially only thought that would be helping a few organisations here in Melbourne. Everything that has opened up for us has come from God opening doors, not us chasing ‘the dream’. Secondly we risked big time, I have realised more and more that people who achieve impact for God and his kingdom almost always risk and take leaps of faith. There were options and jobs before us which would have been safe and secure, but would have distracted us from pursuing God’s agenda. Thirdly I think that we did not try and copy what everyone else did, people respond to Uber because it is a ‘different’ message, one that is often counter cultural. Too often in the Christian scene people simply copy what everyone else is doing. We tried to look for something that no one else was doing, a space to speak into in which there was a great need. Thus Uber has often felt like taking the road less travelled. One that his hard but infinitely rewarding.

So as I reflect over what Uber has done through us this year I cannot but help and marvel at how God uses broken, limited people like us who are willing to take the leap of faith and risk for him.

 

Say Hello To Gen C

What? We have jumped back to C? What happened to Z? This is turning into an episode of Sesame Street.

Ok cynical rant over. Say Hello To Gen C

(H/T Sam)

‘Making Jesus Famous’

Great article in Relevant mag on the unbiblical concept of ‘Making Jesus Famous’ (H/T Glenn)

I have heard people say they want to make Jesus famous. That sounds wonderful, but I’m not sure Jesus wants the help. The irony is, while He was on earth, Jesus had plenty of opportunities to become famous, to leverage His influence for the Kingdom. And yet, He resisted. He repeatedly told the people He healed to be quiet about the miracle, or to simply present themselves to the priest for confirmation of their cleansed state.

On one occasion, when a man who was tormented by demons was set free, the man pleaded with Jesus to let him travel with Jesus. The man could have been Jesus’ opening act, the dramatic testimony that would “build faith” in the crowds before Jesus took the stage. Yet, Jesus tells the man to simply go home and tell his own people what the Lord had done.

And when Jesus did set His face toward Jerusalem, it wasn’t to perform a spectacle at the Temple, as Satan had earlier suggested He do; Jesus went to Jerusalem, to the epicenter of culture, to die.

But what about the crowds?

There were still crowds of people who followed Jesus around. For all His efforts, Jesus was still, in a very real sense, famous. True, but what Jesus chose to do and say among the crowds is instructive. He fed them, taught them, often performed miracles and did everything He could to leave them or drive them away.

In John 6, Jesus does all of the above. After performing one of His greatest miracles—the feeding of the 5,000—the crowd got so excited they insisted on making Jesus king “by force.” Think of it: The people were going to make Him king by force. Isn’t that what Jesus came for? Couldn’t God “use this for His glory”?

In true counter-cultural form though, Jesus retreated to a mountain by Himself. Then, after the crowd tracked Him down, Jesus proceeded to preach His most offensive sermon—something about eating His flesh and drinking His blood—leaving Jesus with only the most devout, or desperate, of His disciples.

Read full article here.

Manhattan

This Sunday I will be bringing my strange brand of biblical and cultural mumblings to Trinity Grace Church in New York. Gabe Lyons will be doing the morning, and I will be doing the evening service in Chelsea. Normally I break in new material in the comfort of the magnificent municipality of Whitehorse and then take it overseas, but this time New York is going to get the slice of the pie first. Details here.

Willow Creek and the Axis of Coffee

To those of you in Chicagoland, I will be speaking tommorow night (wed) at Willow Creek’s Axis Young Adult ministry, looking forward to catching some of my old Chicago friends and meeting some new friends there. All the details are here.

Also humbly this Melbourne coffee snob must admit that the US is no longer the coffee desert it once was, yes there is still hordes of starbucks selling bucketloads of so called ‘coffee’, but on this trip I have found some stellar coffee shops. One in Sioux Falls, SD called Coffea and Intelligentsia in Chicago, and of course Portfolio in Long Beach.  Ok now I am going to shut up, I am sounding like a hyperreal hipster git.

American Adventures. Plus Local and Global trends

Things have been going well here in the US. Had an great time at DakotaWesleyn University in Mitchell. Also had a blast at Embrace church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota is an interesting place. Somewhere that even many Americans have never been. I am always interested in the way that different parts of America are so culturally different from each other. Flying into midwest South Dakota from the Californian hipster enclave of Long Beach was quite an interesting cultural transition. In many ways the missionary context of Longbeach feels a lot more culturally closer to Melbourne. Whereas South Dakota, thanks to its very German, Dutch and Scandinavian heritage is a still a midwest stronghold of Catholicism and Lutheranism. Most people have a connection to Church in the past and the missional task is more centered around confronting ‘cultural Christianity’.

More and more as I travel I observe how individual contexts differ, and thus so must our approaches. However simultaneously global trends still have an incredible affect. In the last few months have seen how my description of the horizontal self has resonated with people in places like Sioux Falls, Copenhagen, Los Angeles, Wellington and Adelaide. So the task to the missional leader is to keep a keen ear to the local ground but also to the mega trends that are affecting us all.

Tasty ‘Leadership in Your Twenties’ Morsels#5 Reading & South Dakota

For the first time this blog broadcasts out from very flat South Dakota. Today I discuss how important reading is to the leader, it is not a case of being or not being a reader, but instead developing a discipline for reading. Plus a tip on how you can pull off a talk or a sermon on the spot with no preparation. Check out the vid

This is the Seth Godin article that I discuss in the vid.

To all of the Single Ladies out there…

My friend Taryn has a wonderful new book out called Bus stops and Bicycles, which is a great handbook for any single Christian ladies out there or for anyone who wants to understand their world better.  It is filled with lots of good advice, biblical based wisdom and handy tips.

You can pre order a copy from here. There is also a book launch which you should get down to if you are in Melbourne. It is on the 18th Nov, (Damask Bar, Brunswick Street, 6-8pm, $20 includes copy of the book and tapas) you can book here.

Tasty ‘Leadership in Your Twenties’ Morsels#4 Proactive vs Reactive

No this one is not about acne treatments, but a different form of proactive.

In attempt to look less pale and gothic, I have fled to Southern California in order to get a tan…The future is so bright, I gotta wear shades.

Rihanna & Covenant

Hey make sure you check out Steve Bell’s analysis of music videos. Steve takes popular music videos and interprets them from a philosophical and cultural viewpoint. In this video that Steve sent me, he takes some of my ideas on Covenant vs Contract and applies it to Rihanna’s latest vid. Check it out