Today is the first anniversary of my father’s death. When I woke up my first thought was of dad. I didn’t feel sad. Rather I felt incredibly thankful. No other man has left as big a mark on my life as my father. He showed me what it means to be a man and a father, the nature of love and...
People Who Have Left a Mark on my Life: Ron
When I was a youth pastor I found my Monday mornings frequently taken up with older members of the congregation. More often than not I was fending off disappointment and anger about the Sunday night service. There weren’t any hymns. The music was too loud. The drama didn’t make sense...
On Prayer #3: Does Prayer Work? Does It Change Anything?
Most of my prayers go unanswered. What am I to make of that? Is the problem me? My prayers? God? Put simply, does prayer work? Jesus seemed to believe that God acts in response to our prayers. Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For...
On Prayer #2. Praying for Parking Spots. Is This Really What We Should Be Praying About?
Does anything trivialize prayer more than praying for a parking spot? Doesn’t “Lord help me find a car park close to the shopping centre entry” really mean “Lord make someone else walk further”? Does it not represent the triumph of a religion that sees God as the great...
On Prayer #1: Prayer Baffles Me
Prayer baffles me. I know it’s important, and I find myself drawn to pray. But I don’t get it. Here’s why. A few years back I went to a midweek prayer group in a somewhat agitated state. My very old Apple laptop had just frozen for the umpteenth time and I’d lost a couple of...
The End of Greed
In 2012 Baptist World Aid Australia released my first book, The End of Greed. Consuming as if God, People and the Planet Matter. In it I argue that our habit of acquiring more is damaging our relationships with God, eroding our generosity, exploiting people in poorer countries, wreaking havoc on...
If I Went Back to Pastoring I’d Do ‘Pastoral Care’ Differently
One of my greatest challenges as a pastor was ‘pastoral care’ and if I was to go back into pastoring a church this is an area where I’d make big changes. During my ministry I championed the idea that we should practise congregational care not ‘pastoral care’. Nowhere...
Has Christianity Been a Force for Good?
On Q&A last week a viewer poll asked the question “Does religious faith make the world a better place?” Seventy-six percent of voters said “no”. On the program tonight there was derisive laughter in the audience when Christopher Pyne commented that religion can be a...
Review: Remember the Poor. Paul, Poverty and the Greco-Roman World
Remember the Poor by Bruce Longenecker is a brilliant piece of work that comprehensively dismantles the notion that care for the poor was a marginal concern for Paul and convincingly demonstrates that it was rather a distinctive feature of Christian living in the Gentile Jesus communities. In the...
Review: The Message and the Kingdom
In The Message and the Kingdom, historians Richard Horsley and Neil Silberman "attempt to reconstruct the social history of early Christianity from a wide variety of newly available evidence drawn from recent studies of ancient Roman culture and from archaeological discoveries throughout the...