As Bold As An Ex Prisoner

This past Sunday I preached on Acts 19 : 1-20 which tells some of the amazing story of Paul. Through this account I share the challenge of being bold, of stepping out of our comfort zone towards God and more of what He wills of us. Check it out by clicking the play button below (9 mins in length).
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You are invited to take a journey to the cutting edge of being church

This coming Sunday/Monday I am leading a church service in the virtual world of Second Life - and you are invited to come and check it out.

It is being held 12pm Sunday - Los Angeles time. To work out what time this is in your part of the world click here.

To attend the service you need to take the following steps..

1. Go to http://secondlife.com/ and click on the big “Get Started Box’

2. When you get to the ‘Join a Community’.. click the Skip this Step button.

3. Fill in the detail as requested.

4. Once the confirmation email arrives.. follow the instructions and download the software onto your hardrive.

5. Then once you have Second Life on your hard drive: enter this URL into your browser:  http://slurl.com/secondlife/Epiphany/90/147/50

This will take you to the Cathedral - And there you are!! Once you are in Second Life please feel free to Instant Message by going to Search again, then the People tab and type in Arkin Ariantho ; then click the Instant Message button. I would love to show you around.

For more information on this cutting edge ministry check out my paper, Christian Mission to a Virtual World :: Christian Mission to a Virtual World (455)

And check out the brownblog info page for further information by clicking here.

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Well now what a nice interview that was.

The national Anglican magazine in New Zealand, The Taonga has just published an interview with me and a piece on the virtual ministry in Second Life I am involved in - well worth checking out!

To read my interview CLICK HERE.

For the Second Life ministry piece CLICK HERE.

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Honesty Openess and Accountability: why not?

A rather bizzare event in Australasian politics occurred the other day when a staffer for the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd accidently gave the New Zealand media a briefing paper on the New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, that was intended for Kevin Rudds’ eyes only.  It included a brutally honest opinion on Helen Clark that was less than flattering.

I found this burst of honesty rather refreshing: getting beyond the disingenuine and saying how it is.

And then the news broke that pastor Michael Guglielmucci, the superstar pastor of Planetshakers in Australia admitted to fabricating a terminal cancer battle over the past two years which he states was to assist him in dealing with his 16-year obsession with pornography.  In a statement Michael shares,  “I’ve been living a lie for a long time, I’ve been hiding who I am for so long. ” He goes on to say, “I’m so sorry, not just for lying to my friends and my family even about a sickness, but I’m sorry for a life of saying I’m something I’m not … from this day on I’m telling the truth.”

How can this happen?  What is happening within this hugely inspirational Christian leader that he can lead such a double life?  Continue reading »

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Shocking Research

In the face of shocking research that indicates a minority of Christians in the part of the Western Church I am involved in are reading their Bible, I have written a short paper that outlines why this is a crisis facing the church. To read it click here: Shining Like Stars Coming under Gods Will (48)

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Time to unwind and relax and you do the work?

It has been a wow, oh, hey now, kind a busy time for me for quite a while now; and I think I deserve very muchly a gooood break where my greatest challenge is eating.   So be warned that there may well be only a few attempts by me to provide content for my blog over the next two weeks.  And then I thought, hey would you like to guest post?   Please email me your idea to:  mbrownsky [at] hotmail [dot] com 

Peace.

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My Choice

I rarely listen to the radio, I download my choice of podcast.

I rarely watch TV, I head to YouTube and watch my choice of video.

I rarely read the newspaper, I choose what news I want and set it up via RSS Feed.

I struggle with a formal learning programme -  being told what I should know, I prefer to explore, to choose what I want to learn.

It is no accident that the latest Apple offering is called MobileMe.

Catering for the individual - convenience, preference and choice.

This is a tough environment within which to create a community.  We are moving away from collective identities to collectives full of individual identities.  So from ‘I am Baptist’ to ‘I attend a Baptist Church.’  This will see a decline in memberships and an increase in church hopping as people move from fellowship to fellowship depending on how they feel.

This will create significant pressures on fundraising and leadership as more people ’surf the church scene’.  Commitment and loyalty will diminish.  How shall we respond?

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Wanna find something out? Don’t bother with your friends, just Google

Recent research conducted by the Auckland University of Technology shows that 71% of New Zealand internet users consider the internet to be an important source of information.  Now what is amazing is that only 56% consider family and friends to be an important source which drops to 52% with newspapers or television.   This amazing trend toward seeing the internet as an important source of information is also reflected in other countries including the USA, and Australia.

The number of people using the internet is growing rapidly. According to Internet World Stats as at June 08 the number of internet users across the globe was 1.5 billion, which represents an increase of 305% since 2000.  Those of us within Christian Ministry need to take the internet seriously.  We need to develop an internet strategy, to work out how to leverage the internet to best promote our mission our cause.  If we don’t we run the risk of our offerings becoming irrelevant.

Now developing a internet strategy is way more than having a web site and a blog though this is clearly part of it, it is about: Continue reading »

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Shining Like Stars: Coming under God’s Will : Part two

To read part one click here.

How do we become blameless and pure? Children of God? Without fault in a crooked and deprived generation? How do we shine like stars?

Philippians records, ‘you hold out the word of life’. The original Greek for ‘hold out’ is ‘epechontes’ which literally means to fix our attention on or to aim for. So ‘hold out the word of life’ literally means to fix our attention on the Bible. So to learn God’s language, to come under God’s will, we need to fix our attention on the Bible. Which is why I find the Bible engagement statistics so alarming.. if we aren’t focused on the Bible what is informing our faith? Television? How we feel? Consumerism?

Coming under God’s will isn’t just about how we relate to God but also how others relate to us. When the Bible exhorts us to ‘shine like stars’ it isn’t suggesting we are stars in the secular sense of a rock star or a sports star, but rather it refers to illuminating those around us. A star illuminates its environment; and we are challenged to illuminate/influence our environment.

As St Francis of Assisi stated, ‘Preach the Gospel, speak if you have to.’

Shining like a star is about who we are rather than what we say. Continue reading »

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Shining Like Stars: Coming under God’s Will : Part one

What is happening to the church in the West?

Recent research from the Bible Society in New Zealand shows that only 11% of New Zealand Christians read their Bible daily. Only 11%! The research goes on to report that only 47% of Christians said that the Bible influences their life. And that 60% of Christians rarely or never discuss the Bible’s teachings with others. (This troubling trend away from Bible engagement is present in other western countries as well.) This is a crisis facing the church as the Bible is our heritage, our foundation. Regardless of your theological persuasion the Bible plays a central role in understanding who we are and how we comprehend ourselves and the world around us. The Bible in particular elucidates how we are to relate to God.

As Philippians 2: 12-13 reads,

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed-not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence-continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

This last sentence is a powerful one, ‘..for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.’ It raises the question, ‘Are you coming under God’s will or your own will?’ Are you predominantly driven by your desire or God’s will? Are you daily submitting your life to God?

Recently I was in China and found myself at an airport as the only foreigner amongst thousands of locals. Suddenly a loud air raid siren wailed which to be frank caused me a moment of panic, and then the most unusual thing happened: everyone stopped dead and the airport fell silent bar the eerie wail of the siren. As I don’t speak Mandarin I had absolutely no idea what was going on. Continue reading »

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