This is a somewhat different interview – the Free Church has started a new podcast called Generation. (you can subscribe to it on Itunes) In this one, the ‘mischievous’ David Meredith, who knows me all, questions/interrogates me about moving to Australia and working with City Bible Forum. We discuss working with the elites/poor, parachurch ministries, why go to Australia? Differences between Australian, American and British culture; engaging with secular media; Becoming a Tory; Illness and death; Debating Reputation, St Peters and the future of the Free Church…Enjoy…
Transported to Australia – Article in Evangelicals Now
Speaking of Podcasts – have you subscribed to Quantum yet?
David, you weren’t given a free pass by David Meredith, especially in relation to two aspects, para church organisations and work into poor communities in relation to the work of City Bible Forum. (CBF )
As a result and from reading Steve McAlpine’s recent article on both the Gospel Coalition and Monergism sites, I looked at the CBF site and it does seem to be focused on businesses rather than working into, or with, churches and, perhaps, how to be a Christian in the work place, soft -form -persuasive evangelism (that topic seems to be a gap in most regions) or, with and among, poor communities.
This is far too great a generalisation, but it seems to me that para-church organisations can and do fill a gap in local churches who may not have the breadth -multi-dimentional- of training and expertise available in and through such organisations.
Who, where, when how and why of the church, the called -out people of God, is of course much bigger than local congregational gatherings notwithstanding that the taught, life transforming, indicatives are needed for the flow of the outworking of life wherever we are.
Hope it goes well and you both settle well and quickly . As you are more than aware, none of us will get a, “well done brilliant and successful servant” but He is faithful who both sows and reaps and His measures of success are not ours.
PS,
Having just closed and posted a comment, I opened the Gospel Coalition site, to see this course by Tim Keller, which may fill the gap, that I perceived to exist:
https://scatter.org/courses/redefining-work-with-tim-keller?utm_source=scatter&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=tgc
In addition, from Ian Paul’s blog, an article entitled “What are the laity for..” drawing on the Anglican canons together with liturgy he states that;
“This, then, is what the Church of England believes about the role of the ‘laity’, the people of God in the world. We have experienced the unique grace of the Fatherhood of God in Jesus by the Spirit, and we are to offer that to all. We live distinctive lives which proclaim not our goodness, but the grace of God, bringing light into dark places, demonstrating a shared life in a broken world. And we live in hope that God will complete his purposes, and that one day ‘the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever’ (Rev 11.15).
This is a high calling, and one that our practice has not always reflected. But is it one we actually understand?”
Part of a comment I made, as an astonishment that the title could be asking , by implication “what is a Christian for? When ,where,why how”, I wrote this:
“Indeed it is a “high calling” of “the people of God in the world.” BUT I have not in my years as a Christian heard, or read ANYONE say that.”