The Talk Place

A faith mission like GRN must by definition have a strong grasp of Faith.

Faith is central to anyone wanting to do missions or be a missionary.

A young minister was visiting an elderly woman on her 99th birthday.

They talked at length about her long life and at the end of the visit the young minister said " I hope I am able to do this with you again on your 100th birthday.

The sprightly 99 year old replied " I don't see why not young man .... you look healthy enough to me."

Hope springs eternal. Hope I think is the most marvelous word in the English language.

Today I have been working on an article summarising the field-testing results of the Saber. I have poured over many pages of feedback; both technical and practical. Most of the comments come down to the same thing; "The Saber is an amazing resource!" I'm thoroughly excited to be a part of this.

I went to a conference called Melbourne Conferences for Ethnic Evangelism. It was a one day event that was as the name implied, all about resourcing the Ethnic Christian Community of Melbourne (Australia).

As I sit here with Writer's Block and an incomplete article in front of me, I am forced to address some very basic questions. Who is GRN, and what do we do? It may seem very obvious to those working within the Mission, but defining it eloquently is surprisingly difficult.

Today at church I was surprised by something so simple. I have never understood the verse of the sermon on the mount that says "Blessed are the poor in spirit". (Mt 5:1)

My wife, Katrina, and I went and saw Baz Luhrman's latest film, Australia last night for our 13th wedding anniversary. We are great fans of Baz's films so we were looking forward to this one.

As Nicole Kidman said when interviewed by Oprah, Baz is a romantic and a story teller. And Australia is a big romantic movie (in all senses of the word) with many stories interwoven.

Does being an Evangelical Missionary or for that matter a Christian, mean that I have to work myself to death?

What does it mean to be a living sacrifice?

Being a living sacrifice is something I have been struggling with all my Christian life.

No matter how good the program is (Alpha, Master Life, Coffee shops, Drop-in centres, Clubs, tracts, CD's, MP3's Cassettes), it is most effective with the personal invitation or contact.

I listened to a sermon last week from a powerful preacher in the USA. He likened the state of the church in the Western World to the church of Laodicea as described by Jesus in Revelation. I don't think he'd get too many arguments from Christians today.