Henri Nouwen Meditation: Community is not possible without the willingness to forgive one another “seventy-seven times” (see Matthew 18:22). Forgiveness is the cement of community life. Forgiveness holds us together through good and bad times, and it allows us to grow in mutual love. But what is there to forgive or...

Report to Team and Partners AGM 2011 Read the Annual Report given by me, and those of the Regional Teams. I am sure you will find them interesting to read.

This is the talk Jack Guerin, house church leader New Zealand, gave at the OIKOS Australia AGM on 15th January. This is for leaders, not-yet-leaders and those who are looking for leaders -  in the context of simple/organic/house churches. I want to answer these questions; what did Jesus say about Christian...

Last year, I put together my 100 Best Christian Books Ever Written List. To my pleasant surprise, each day people are purchasing books from this list. I also made a special audio for it called Building Your Spiritual Library: Thoughts on Christian Books. Sometimes later, I created a Kindle version...

Last year I wrote a post entitled The Secret to Recharging Your Creativity. In it, I talked about the need for re-creation and recharge. When we examine the life of Jesus, we discover that He would sometimes retreat from the crowds, and even from His disciples, to recharge spiritually. “He...

“Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” ~ Matthew 6:10 As long as I’ve been a Christian, I’ve noted two things that believers routinely get riled up about. One is the role of the Spirit vs. the role of the Scriptures. Christians seem...

Based on your input (recorded here and here) and my own convictions, I have come up with my first attempt at a working title and thesis for my next book. The word ‘working’ means that it’s still being worked on...

Two weeks ago I asked for your help in identifying the key hindrances in the Western church. I did this to inform me with your insights as I work on my next book. Your responses were many and amazing! I...

It was so invigorating to receive the comments from my last post in which I asked for input on what y’all see as the major hindrance in the church in the West. Because of the value of this input, I...

This video is several years old, but it's really, really good. A few years ago, reports coming in from the field to the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptists were showing something new. An rapid and seemingly almost spontaneous multiplication of new disciples and new churches was occurring in...

I am privileged to have Ed Waken, an evangelist, write this outstanding post on evangelism. What could happen if we didn't view spreading the good news as a chore, a somewhat socially embarrassing spiritual duty to be performed, but instead an adventure with Jesus. You can read part 1 of...

Are all of us called to evangelize? This series of blog posts has been on simple/organic mission and evangelism. It has provoked a slew of questions. I am blessed to know Ed, an evangelist who is involved in organic churches. Here is his unique take on some of the questions....

Dorothy Day once described herself as "a journalist and a diarist pure and simple" as opposed to a writer of books. As a young girl, she kept a diary and later became a journalist to pay the bills. I would...

Yesterday I was at All Saints [Hataitai] Church to witness and participate in a covenant signing ceremony. But before you get all excited about that word "covenant", I should tell you that: 1. Yes, I know all about last week's...

I took my tallest kids over to Lower Hutt today for The Hobbit casting call. Filming starts next month for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and they were looking for extras: the short, the tall, the skinny, men with big...