On Friday I met up with Izaac, a cool dude from Sydney who is finishing up his MTS apprenticeship this week. He and his wife Sarah graciously opened their home to a stranger and had some really good advice for me:

• MTS is not a marathon – it’s a series of 400 metre sprints.
• Take your rest when you get it, and don’t feel bad about resting when others are working.
• Don’t feel bad if you knock out your day off watching DVDs or daytime television.
• Incidentally, Izaac doesn’t think it’s bad to watch the daytime TV show Opera. I disagreed with him. I think it will take us years to work this out.
• Be aware that you’ll overwork.
• You’ll go to social gatherings, like Weddings or 21sts, and be placed on a table with your host’s non-Christian friends. Moral of the story – even in something you intend to be social, you’ll end up working
• Being single will give you the opportunity to get further involved in some areas of your ministry.
• Izaac and Sarah put out a DVD if they can’t make it to their supporter churches.
• They also put together a publication, not just a letter, with recurring sections. Izaac likes to use the front section to have a gospelcentric reflection on what he has learned recently as they send supporter letters to non-Christian friends and family who take an interest in their work.
• Because of this, In their publication they don’t presume people will pray, so entitle their prayer requests “for those who pray”. I like that.
• Don’t spread yourself too thin and do things ‘Ok’. Aim to do a few things really effectively.
• They had lots of teapots – I thought that was impressive.

Izaac and Sarah shared much more with me, and I’m grateful for that. Best wishes for them as they move off to study at Moore Theological College next year. You can read Izaac’s blog here. It’s brilliant.

1. The main vibe of the conference was one of “We’re still working this out” – I thought that was awesome, it invited discussion, rather than dividing between those who had ‘made it’ and those who hadn’t. I wasn’t really expecting it to be any different, but it was encouraging to have this confirmed.
2. Often at conferences like this, the main speaker dudes are a bit inaccessible. This wasn’t the case at ITC, although I didn’t talk with everyone who got behind the mic, I did speak to Al and Andrew, had a chat with Tim, just generally didn’t feel ‘the divide’. Hopefully it remains that intimate. It was good.
3. We didn’t walk away with a formula, or a predetermined action plan, but instead a vision. I’m not sure how it was for the people going through assessments, but at various points during the conference there were definitely opportunities to take heed of big questions we should be asking before starting on the path of church planting.
4. A good mix of people at different points of their endeavours – it’s great to see that people who had already planted found it valuable to take part in something like In The Chute, obviously with an intention of both learning and sharing.
5. I didn’t really understand what Jim Wallace talked about on the Saturday night, a lot of the corporate and army speak that just went over my head. I wasn’t convinced it was to helpful, maybe that’s why I didn’t get it.
6. The elective sessions although excellent in content felt much like the rest of the conference itself, I’m not sure whether the organisers envisioned them to be something a bit different.
7. Would have been good to hear a bit more from Al preaching the word. In a conference like this, you can never have enough bible based encouragement
8. The final day was my favourite, where we heard some more ‘church planter in the raw’. The “Weeping Daves” as Mikey called them, they spoke of massive grace in their weaknesses and their opposition and pain. I found this the most encouraging session too. A lot of the conference I was catching myself thinking ‘How on earth will I manage to do this?’. That final session was both a comfort and a grounder reminding me that I don’t have to manage it, but God has it under control
9. The issue of pride came up a lot, along with sound biblical advice. I appreciated that as it’s a big issue for me.
10. Other ‘controversial’ issues, when raised, were treated with respect and good Biblical instruction

All in all it was fantastic. I loved every second of it (except maybe the saturday night session) and I look forward to dragging others along with me next year!

The way wholly loving God works out under the old covenant is in heartfelt obedience to the terms of that covenant – and that includes the primary place given to the cultus, with all it’s import and purpose in the stream of redemptive history; and the implications of this outworking include distinctions between the holy and the common, between holy space and common space, between holy time and common time, between holy food and common food. The way wholly loving God works out under the new covenant is in heartfelt obedience to the terms of that covenant – and here the language of the cultus has been transmuted to all of life, with the implication, not so much of a desacralization of space and time and food, as with a sacralization of all space and all time and all food: what God has declared holy let no one declare unholy.

..on a crazy facebook group:

2 Corinthians 11:3 “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”

The Bible says there is simplicity in Christ. Jesus and the Word are synonymous in the Bible. Therefore the Bible is a pretty simple book to understand. If you’re having trouble understanding it then you probably oughta find out if you’re actually saved.

makes me sad.

C. J. Mahaney from Sovereign Grace Ministries is on my RSS feed. I often find his blogs really interesting to read.

I found this one particularly poignant.

C. J. reflects about Tiger Woods current situation, and how as Christians we can helpfully respond to any discussion or any media we hear on it.

The Geneva Push isn’t a Sydney Anglican thing, nor is it just a Sydney thing. It’s for all of Australia. Tassie has a good representation actually, being 6 or 7 of us here. That being said, the place is full of Sydney people, and Moore College is a name that has probably by now been spoken by 80% of the attendees here.
I don’t find that discouraging, I think it’s encouraging. I am glad to see that Sydney evangelicalism has fired up many people for the Gospel being preached into new areas and into new contexts. But the risk is that where the ethos is very evangelical, it’s naturally going to draw in far more sydneysiders and then look very sydney. I would suggest that it’s something that TGP is going to have to wear for some time, while the network grows. I don’t think there is any way to avoid it.

[I've cut some stuff from the middle here for now, cause it looks like it's gonna be addressed in the next session ]

Solo time is hard to find. A lot of the people attending seem to be extroverts and highly energetic people, maybe it’s not an issue for them, but between sessions and meal breaks there is not much time to find to spend alone in prayer or to spend time reflecting. It’s pretty intense here, and fast paced. I know that I need to take time out to digest, but feel kind of guilty about it when I do. Maybe it comes out of the drive to connect to one another, and build up those friendships in such a short time. On the flip side, I think it is good though that there isn’t a mass of dead time. If the organisers were going to err on one side or the other, keeping the pace is definitely the better of the two.

This is all rather finicky, I’m certainly having a great time here, and much effort has gone into the organisation of the conference, and it’s certainly a privilege and blessing to be able to attend and spend time with these amazing people.

Mikey is killing it when it comes to blogging the conference, so I won’t even attempt to do any detailed blogging of the sessions, but I’ll endeavour to share some initial impressions of the beast that is a church planting conference.

Firstly, it’s really obvious that the intention is to allow an opportunity for people to network. The Geneva Push is a church planting Network and unless we actually do the networking, TGP kinda doesn’t exist. So, that’s been encouraged, and has been excellent. Amazing stories from committed people of God, where God has blessed their ministries, challenged them personally, they’ve seen trials and failures and difficulties, and have come to share and encourage others, and stepping up to guide.

Secondly, the people here are passionate and real. No one claims to punch above their weight, there are just a lot of Aussie guys and their wives, pumped for Jesus, attending the conference not to flex their ministry muscles but to learn and to grow and find out where they fit in. There are so many variations on ‘Church Planting’ here: People that have planted congregations inside existing churches, people that have taken core groups from existing churches, churches that have had native core groups begun by 1 or 2 people with a vision for planting in an area, so have invested time and taken jobs to know the locals before setting out. There are dudes that want to plant interstate, want to plant in New Zealand, that are committed to these amazing life changes because, above their comfort, they find their identity in Christ and Gospel ministry, and recognise that there is a need for many more godly evangelical churches in Australia and beyond.

Thirdly, there isn’t a sense of ‘jumping on the bandwagon’. A lot of the guys here have either planted or begun planning for their plant. There are young guys like me, some at ‘dreaming’ stage, or in my case, just ‘curious’. But all people here have in their heart a desire to see the gospel go out to the people, not just be trendy.

Sydney public transport both rules and sucks at the same time.
They have awesome websites that are integrated across the transport mediums and will tell you the type you need to catch to your destination, and the exact times they leave, and even if they are on time for the day or not. They have clearly signed bus stops and colour coded systems so you might be able to tell at a distance what’s happening. All these things serve the local very well – but to be given such precise information comes with a false sense of security. Turn up and look at the bus colour and realise you needed to prepay a ticket, and then look at the list of places to buy a ticket and realise you don’t know where any of those places are, and when you do turn up at those places to buy a ticket and the seller can’t tell you how many sections you need to pay for, you have a problem.

Thankfully, I solved my dilemma in 15 minutes, but it did involve 4 blocks and a lot of running with a pack, as I ran from booth to booth to find information. I made it onto the bus, and thanks to iPhone and google maps, managed to get off at the right stop to head up to Collaroy centre where we’re holding the Geneva Push conference. I’ll be dropping in my first impressions later, but it’s off to day two of the conference for now.

Update: I am also officially the owner of a pair of thongs. Of the common foot wearing variety. Because of this, I am very encouraged.
Also, yesterday, amongst other things, I went to the Apple Store on George St in Sydney, to buy a new battery for my laptop, which has in the past few months come to the conclusion it no longer needs to function to any great degree, and will die unexpectantly if low on charge. I bought my battery, and literally gave the guy NO information about myself, none whatsoever, no id, no name giving, nothing, zip. 200 metres down the road, my Mobile Me (apple email) account beeps on my phone to tell me I have a new email. It was a digital receipt for what I had just bought.
I dunno how they did it, if they found my phone searching the network, mined some information about me and from there discerned my info on their system or what, but it freaked me out. go figure!

Sunday night I managed to walk into Sydney Central YHA and find myself a room, couldn’t get the cheapest one possible, unfortunately they were all booked out, so I forked out $40 for a 6 bed room, with only 4 people in it, so turned out to be really good.

I was bunking with a Belgian fellow named Ghem (“Jim”) and a French-Canadian guy, so they kept speaking French all the time, but Ghem was real pumped to work on his English as well, so we had a great chat just about his Australian experience and where he wants to go. He wants to come to Tassie to work in fruit picking or manual labour – in Belgium he was a personal trainer.
The Hostel environment is so weird – everyone there has a similar way of life, so there is a comradeship about the way people interact, but no one knows one another, and will not get to know others beyond superficial stuff unless they live in the same room. The exception is across gender lines, people will get to know others outside their room if they are of a different sex. Not surprising really..

So, I made it to Sydney, with a few hiccups. I left my glasses at home, and had to turn around to pick them up. We only got 50 metres down the road, but I managed to spill coffee on my pants in the u-turn. Nick and I, committed to the coffee cause, were driving to the airport, coffee cup in hand. It was awesome. (Don’t ask the mechanics of that, except to know that it wasn’t strictly legal) Anyway..

Mikey Lynch and I came to a realisation we were catching the same flight this morning before we left, which was wack. When we arrived, we caught the train out to Newtown and hung out with Nick and Bron, an awesome couple, really friendly and full of conversation and ideas. I finally could put a face to the names I’d been hearing! It was awesome fun hanging out with those guys, discovering the area where Moore College is, meeting Maisy their bub and visiting a well good cafe called Shenkin for lunch. Excellent coffee and food. Nick is getting tips from the main Barista dude there for coffee making, so it’s a real local. Nick and Bron are coming back to Hobart next year, and Nick is going through The Geneva Push church planting assessment. The intend to plant a church in Glenochy/Nth Suburbs. I think that’s awesome. They are awesome.

After that, I caught the train back to Central Sydney, went for a wander to re-aquaint myself with my second favourite city and now, I’m sitting in McDonalds, resting my feet, and blogging. I love Sydney.

Tomorrow I head to In the Chute, gonna rock.