Craig Ogden speaking at the DVBC Discipleship Conference Feb 2019

Saturday morning workshop



Question and Answer time

Diamond Valley & The Vine & North Baptist Churches Leaders' Day DISCIPLESHIP FOCUS

I want to invite you to our 2019 Leadership Day! This year our  focus is discipleship.

The idea of discipleship is at the very core of the commission Jesus gave to that first little group of followers: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations….” (Matthew 28:19-20). A disciple is someone who like an apprentice who watches and imitates the teacher so as to adopt their behaviour and practice. Disciples became like their teachers. Disciples do not simply accumulate information about Jesus but show transformation to be more like Jesus.

One of the common things you tend to hear from those who have studied the western church is: “We haven’t done discipleship that well for many years...”

I remember some years ago talking to a wonderful couple whose young adult daughter was a youth leader at their church. The daughter was mentoring a group of 12-year-old girls. She was in an intercessory prayer group. She practiced a daily devotional time. She was part of a simple but effective outreach programme at the local high school. As we talked, the mum who was a ‘born and bred’ Christian herself said: “I could never do all that! She knows more than me about faith and all. I wouldn’t know how to read the bible like that or share my faith like that... I’m not actually sure what my testimony would be…”.

Mike Breen says something profound: “What is the engine of the church? Discipleship. I’ve said it many times: If you make disciples, you will always get the church. But if you try to build the church, you will rarely get disciples. If you’re good at making disciples, you’ll get more leaders than you’ll know what to do with. If you make disciples like Jesus made them, you’ll see people come to faith who didn’t know Him. If you disciple people well, you will always get the missional thing. Always.”

Here’s what Alan Hirsch says: “Evangelism can’t be our focus! We must not stop sharing the good news, but here’s the deal, here’s the wonderful thing, it gets done along the way as you do discipleship….”

We need to invest in discipleship if we are going to be  effective and fruitful in reaching our culture.

A thriving discipleship culture is central to the health and mission of each of our three churches. We will be hearing stories of discipleship focussed churches and learning core principles from experienced teachers. It will also be an awesome time to get to know each other and share about how we see God leading us. We’d really like you to join us. 

Friday 8 Feb 6:30pm - 9:00pm & Sat Feb 9 8:30am — 4:00pm. 

   - Cost: No charge, we really would like our leaders to join us!

   - We’ll be meeting at Diamond Valley Baptist Church

   - RSVP to your church office by 01 Feb 2019

Grace and Peace,

Martin Boutros

   

NB: DVBC leaders contact Rosemary 9435 9377 or office@dvbc.net  

Saints & Scoundrels - summary

An interesting 10 minute summary of a series of longer talks by Mike Breen worth hearing... The three longer talks can be found HERE.

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Could this be the future of Church as we know it?

The Western church still puts a huge amount of effort into its central programmes, particularly the Sunday Worship Service. Yet the question needs to be asked why we do that. If our calling is to go and live out the good news, sharing our lives in our neighbourhoods building friendships, being community -  then why do we expect that in a post-Christian world, that bringing people to a big event in a building is the 'core' activity?

What does it mean to live as 'families' on mission? To be communities of disciples that connect deeply with the many who have a spiritual hunger but are deeply suspicious of 'religion.'

This is a cool video - the story of a worship leader who began asking deep questions ... 



Source:  http://www.thedesertbloomsproject.com

Why the missional movement will fail...

This is a thought provoking article by Mike Breen originally posted HERE 12 Sept 2011

It’s time we start being brutally honest about the missional movement that has emerged in the last 10-15 years: Chances are better than not it’s going to fail.

That may seem cynical, but I’m being realistic. There is a reason so many movements in the Western church have failed in the past century: They are a car without an engine. A missional church or a missional community or a missional small group is the new car that everyone is talking about right now, but no matter how beautiful or shiny the vehicle, without an engine, it won’t go anywhere.

So what is the engine of the church? Discipleship. I’ve said it many times: If you make disciples, you will always get the church. But if you try to build the church, you will rarely get disciples.

JUNE 28 2013 UPDATE

3DM European Senior Leaders Retreat at Horsey Green. Over a hundred people with a great diversity of stories. Diversity yet shared passion and purpose and perseverance. The mark of an emerging movement.

27 JUNE UPDATE

Arriving in Oxford, we spent ages driving around looking for a place to park. It was 'open week' or something like that, and the place was swarming with prospective students, in orientation groups being shown round the town. Is it me or do uni students look younger each year? Anyway. At the last moment we found a place to park, looked up and discovered we were across from the Eagle and Child. 

As the sign says, this is where the Inklings met for many years. The more regular members of the Inklings included J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. "Jack" Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, Tolkien's son, Christopher, Lewis's elder brother Warren, Roger Lancelyn Green, Adam Fox, Hugo Dyson, Nevill Coghill amongst others. Guests included Dorothy Sayers.

On the way out we drove through the Oxford suburbs past 20 Northmoor Road. During his time at Pembroke College Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings, whilst living at 20 Northmoor Road inNorth Oxford (where a blue plaque was placed in 2002).

Librarian heaven! The Bodleian Library,  the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, 1602 in its current form.

A Summary

Well, it's been a while since the Pilgrimage Conference finished up, and I've been thinking about the principles I've heard and observed. Meanwhile the three of us have headed up north into Scotland, through Edinburgh, up past Perth and to the Isle of Skye. Beautiful, stark, dark and rugged countryside. More about that later.

As a first go at drafting a summary list:

TRAVELLING!

Hey everyone, 

I'll be away from: Wednesday 5th of June and back on deck Wed 3rd of July 2013!

I will be in the U.K. with Esmae and our daughter Caity.

I will be involved in three 'ministry' related activities:

• The 3DM Pilgrimage Conference  10 - 14  June 2013 in  Sheffield.

• Conversations with a number of church leaders whose congregations have been on transformative journeys.

• The 3DM Senior Leaders and Spouses Retreat  24 - 26 June 2013, Oxfordshire.

In the meantime, Esmae and Caity, with a lamentable lack of commitment will be taking in the sights on our road trip, and taking no notes on missional church stuff! It will be a great blend of time connecting with some very insightful mission and ministry practitioners as well as travelling with my two favourite girls!

I am hoping to journal some of my learnings and reflections. So if these sort of themes interest you - stay tuned! 

Cheers,

Martin 

What is a Missional Community?

One of the inspirational speakers that I heard at  “Exponential: On The Verge” back in April 2011 in Orlando, Florida was Mike Breen (Bio is at the end of the article). The journey he has been on resonates with my experience. I believe that this could well be an approach that helps us in planting effective churches here in Australia:

What is a Missional Community?

By Mike Breen

Often times people use the phrase ‘missional community’ to describe the state of a group of people. It’s descriptive. The question seems to be, “Is this community missional?” Or, as Neil Cole says, “Is this community joining the mission that God is already doing?” Are we existing as a sent people? It is meant to be descriptive and rather general. The way that I have used this phrase in the past 20 years is a bit more specific and more as a proper noun. Just like the phrase ‘Worship Service’ denotes something quite specific, so the phrase ‘Missional Community’ originated as a very specific thing, identifying a type of missional vehicle that was created in the late 1980’s in the UK.