Unwise as it might be, friends of ours have invited us to be God parents of their child.  Once all of the Brando impressions were finished, we have set about our responsibilities.  So for N’s dediction tonight, I trotted off to Word to get a suitably kitsch dedication present.  Given that they were fresh out […]

A new stream of forge is being launched in Melbourne!
For much of forge’s history in Melbourne the emphasis has been on people who are embarking on new missional projects or who are involved in church planting environments. This focus on new missional projects or church planting has been an imperative so that our churches […]

In the line of articles discussing the so-called “decline” of civility in Australian and British society, the Australian publishes this essay, which places the blame squarely at the feet of the decline of institutional Christianity:
The key to the collapse in civility is the decline in Christianity. The British character was shaped by the early 19th-century […]

I am reading traveling together – a guide for disciple-forming congregations at the moment. So far I have found it excellent. In particularly, I have loved the way the author (Jeffrey Jones) has summarises the book of Acts. It has energised me to read the book of Acts through again - maybe using Eugene Petersen’s […]

Alan sent me this story for my Muslim friend – I thought I would post it here too.

An old Arab lived close to New York City for more than 40years. One day he decided that he would love to plant potatoes and herbs in his garden, but he knew he was alone and too old […]

Karl Marx once said that religion was the opium of the masses.
On Sunday at our blended congregation we had as our guest Dean Phelan who is the current President of Churches of Christ in Victoria and Tasmania. He used this quote from Phillip Adams to describe some of the changes that are appearing in our […]

For some time now we have been exploring the mDNA components that are described in Alan Hirsch’s forthcoming book and how it applies to Northern Community. The other posts in the mDNA series are here
If you would like to read the essays in entirety rather than as a series of posts - here they are. […]

“There is within you a raw and untamed faith, waiting to be unleashed”

Erwin Raphael McManus
(found in the UNOH newsletter)

At the Brian McLaren postcards event the other night, the Rev asked what Brian’s reaction was to the recent criticism of Emergent by DA Carson and others.  He responded by referring to this poem posted on his site, written by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovic, a Serbian Bishop who spoke out against Nazism, was arrested and sent to […]

At a recent meeting at Northern, we were discussing one of our congregations focus, purpose and mission. A paper had been prepared to orient our discussion and it made the point that we needed to regain a missional focus for this particular congregation. One of our leaders, who is a very wise and experienced former […]