Sports Ministry Internship 08

Filed under: Articles — dean at 07:52 AM on Dec 10, 2007

A new way of harvesting in a sports obsessed world...

The Pines is offering a one year course in sports ministry, in conjunction with goodLIFE.

The course includes the Cert IV in Planting and Growing Vibrant Churches, Cert IV in Fitness, an indigenous missions trip (planning and implementing sporting clinics for indigenous kids and outreach activities for local community organisations) and an overseas missions trip (including sports outreach for a medical clinic, sports days for orphans and sports clinics for disadvantaged communities).

The Sports Missionary Internship kicks off on 4 February 2008. Applications will be closing soon. Please apply to The Pines. Act now - the first 8 students for 2008 receive a $500 bursary.

Want more out of life? Come and check out The Pines!

Filed under: Articles — dean at 05:00 PM on Oct 03, 2007

Make your move and come to InfoExpo @ The Pines Training Centre

When: Sunday 28 October 2007
Starts 2pm finishes at 4pm
Where:102 Buderim Pines Drive, Buderim
RSVP: to the office on 5477 5070

What’s happening
• Mini-training session so you can check it out
• Personal stories of transformation from Pines’ participants and graduates
• Run-down of courses available
• Tour of the training centre
• Q&A and meet the trainers
• Afternoon tea


freedom! (no blue face paint required)

Filed under: Articles — dean at 12:00 AM on Aug 23, 2007

Growing up I feared with a passion school report card day. To this day my father has not seen all of my report cards.

Last week my four year old son brought his first report card home from kindergarten.

How is that possible? How do you prepare a report on a four year old who can’t read or write, whose favourite conversation starter is, “Is sixty bigger than sixty hundred?”

After careful reading I soon discovered the report card serves no purpose other than to evaluate my son’s ‘imagination’ or creativity. Now I don’t need a teacher to tell me my son has an imagination – he told me last night he was going to buy me a new car for my birthday.

By nature all kids are creative. We don’t have to teach kids how to explore, how to ask questions, how to make up stories, it just happens!

I think it’s this creativity in humans which makes us different to all other created beings, and to the rest of creation. The Bible tells us the reason our kids are creative is because they are created in the image and likeness of the God who is ‘creative’. Not just the creator of the universe but the creative of the universe!

God imagined our world before He created it, and when He spoke it came into being.

Obviously, there is a difference between you and me and God. God created out of nothing, we create out of something. We can’t just speak into being things which have never existed before.

As I look at the Church in Australia, particularly as I look at the top level leadership, I fear we are missing something – something we were created to have and experience but something which we are fearful of reclaiming, perhaps even a little embarrassed to mention. Or depending upon the doctrine we believe a little reluctant to pick up on.

I am talking about our imagination or creativity.

You might say. `But I’m not creative’.

Not true. You might not be ‘artistic’.

You may not be able to sculpt, dance or play the drums (I can’t even clap in time) and you’ve been tricked into thinking you’re uncreative.

Absolutely untrue! You may be uncoordinated… but you’re not uncreative.

Creativity spans the full spectrum of human talent and gifting and all of us have within God-created creativity waiting to be set free.

In Galatians 5 verse 1 Paul writes, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

And verse 13, “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.”

WOW! Did you see it? It is for freedom Christ has set you free.

Despite this amazing proclamation so much of our conversation, our time, our understanding of God is understood in terms of rules and commands and all the “don’ts” in life.

We get the false impression that God is trying to put us in a box, trying to standardize us yet Paul knew that what Jesus Christ came to do is to set us free.

You are called to be free!

But sadly, as we grow up we make choices which destroy that freedom. Choices which may rob us of our health, our joy, our peace. Choices which rob us of freedom.

What choices have you made that have stolen your freedom?

I’m not just talking about those easy to see sins. But what choices have we made as Christian leaders which have robbed us of taking a fresh approach to something?

What choices have we made that deny or hinder the Church from trying something new, because something, somewhere in our past has urged us to lean towards caution or even a ‘just don’t do it.’

A couple of weeks ago I was traveling home from work, a journey for which I have two choices – do I go the old way which is full of traffic lights and a lower speed limit, or the new way which has no traffic lights and a higher speed limit?

Riding my new Ducati I chose the fast way. You can guess what happened, I got stuck behind a slow moving Honda Jazz. I am going crazy behind her, and the traffic isn’t that bad, but it is an unbroken line.

So I sit there muttering in my helmet. People go this way because it is quicker, it is faster than the old way. I look at the car, look at the speedo, look at the double lines, say to myself, “Don’t do it Dean, obey the law today” and finally when we hit the round about and we have the extra lane for 10 metres, I speed around her and get in front.

For a lot of us, we think our spiritual experience is just like getting into the faster lane. We are trying to go full speed into life and zoom we get behind God and we think Jesus starts slowing us down.

The whole world is moving by. They can change lanes, they can have a good time, they can mock you as they go by, because they made that choice and are going faster than you.

Because we wrongly think God is the one who narrows our options rather than expands our freedom. Wrong.

We think God is up there going ‘No no no’ when in fact He keeps saying ‘Go go go’.

Maybe you’ve risked, dared or even stepped out and advanced, and you’ve been disappointed.

Maybe you’ve experienced failure and humiliation.

Don’t forget we were created as creative beings.

God frees us to be creative, to lead in creative ways.

Don’t let your past choices hinder you from advancing, don’t allow them to force you to say no, let them free you to go.

What happened to us?

The One who created the intricacies of gravity, the balance of nature, the complexity of human emotions…He’s the One in whose image you were created.
Get out of the box. Be free.

~ Dean Thomas </P

re-inventing the Church in Australia

Filed under: Articles — dean at 10:02 AM on Aug 22, 2007

Some people love the Church, some are suspicious of the Church and still others hate it with a vengeance!

But which Church do they love or hate? Is it the greying, largely traditional Church; the aggressive, contemporary mega or regional Church; or the almost hidden (no buildings) emerging Church?

And which Church needs to change?

The pundits are predicting the demise of many of the established congregations over the next 20 years due to their failure to attract young adults. This happened in the UK amongst the Methodists two decades ago and out of the closures of many Churches there arose a whole new vibrant Church planting movement which successfully engaged people with the Gospel.

It is a foolish thing to write off the Church when Christ said He Himself would build it! Individual congregations may become non-viable but the Church will always be with us in some form or another.



The question many Church leaders are asking is, How can the Church in Australia re-invent itself in order to get back on message and fulfil Christ's mission in the world?

This question implies there are certain non-negotiables that are presumably sacrosanct due to Biblical constraints.


I am fairly certain there has not been enough homework done on these issues to date. For this reason we may have made the mistake of calling some emerging models Churches, when in fact they do not fulfil the basic functions according to the Bible.

The question also implies it is possible re-invent the Church in any age. There is a need for clear contextualisation here.

If we can determine the difference between what is obviously Biblical and valid in all cultures, and what is clearly cultural in the Australian Church, then it will be possible for a new Church to emerge that is clothed in the Australian culture yet challenging to those aspects that defy the Bible.

Eddie Gibbs in Church Next declared our Churches can display one of three attitudes towards the world around them.

Firstly, we can display an attitude of judgmental isolation. This head-in-the sand attitude ignores the fact that complete isolation is impossible because most of our people have to cope with the pressures of the world on a daily basis.

Secondly, we may display an attitude of protective separation. This attitude involves engagement with the world, but it also demands that individuals who wish to enter the Church must clean up their lives first and undergo cultural indoctrination and initiation.

The third attitude is one of missionary engagement according to Gibbs. In this case, the Church recognises it's distinctive identity in the Gospel but also its calling within a specific culture.

In this preferred third alternative, the Church goes into the world with the same degree of dependence as Jesus demonstrated towards His Heavenly Father, and also with humility and repentance in communicating its message. This third attitude best describes where the Church should be.

The primary challenge facing the Australian Church is not the challenge of re-inventing itself, but the challenge of re-connecting with people who have a different worldview so as to present the Gospel in a way that makes sense to them.

This challenge necessitates a missionary mindset and demands all the skills employed by cross-cultural missionaries overseas.

Three of us who minister together out of this missionary conviction are embarking on a journey together. I (John Tanner) am a missiologist, Colin Stoodley is a Church planter and the training director of The Pines Training Centre, and Dean Thomas is a pastor evangelist;

We also represent three generations.

We're not sure where our journey will take us because we know we don't have all the answers. We need input from others that we meet on the road.

[John] During the years when the influence of Christendom was pervasive within Australian culture, people connected with the Church as a relevant and necessary part of their community. Now Australia is a multi-cultural nation in a post-Christian phase. We shouldn't allow the high profile of a few mega Churches to hide this fact from us.

We are correct to view Australia as a mission field that requires us to re-connect with various sectors of our society in redemptive ways.

[Dean] John's point regarding the decline of influence of Christendom within Australian society can no longer be argued against. For some within the Church, this has been a frightening development causing all sorts of negative reactions detrimental to the cause of winning Aussies for Christ.

Some Churches are now so disconnected to society that unless a miracle occurs the Church will continue to be, at best, irrelevant or at worst, counter-productive to reaching the unsaved.

[John] The first step in the journey to re-connection is preparation. Everyone knows the key to a successful journey lies in being properly prepared. Our preparation involves:


*understanding the worldview of the people we're trying to reach
*determining what is to be contextualised, and
*dentifying appropriate ministry models




1. Understanding Worldview


We can think of worldview in three general categories. The surface category is the cognitive dimension dealing with what people know, the way they think logically and how they view wisdom. The intermediate level of worldview is the affective dimension which deals with feelings and aesthetics. The deepest level of worldview is the evaluative dimension which is comprised of beliefs, values and allegiances. In order to reach people with the Gospel, we must first understand and appreciate their worldview.

The worldview of the Baby Boomer is radically different from that of the Gen Xer. Similarly, recent immigrants from Hong Kong will have a different worldview from third generation Australian Chinese. Unless the Gospel penetrates deep down to the level of beliefs and values, true conversion is not possible.

One of the greatest challenges facing the Australian Church is to understand and appreciate the worldview of people under thirty-five years of age in order to re-connect with them and to introduce them to Jesus.

2. Contextualisation


[John] The second task in preparing ourselves to re-invent the Church is the work of contextualisation.

Because Jesus commanded us to preach the Gospel to all the people groups, we may safely assume that the Gospel will fit within every sub-culture on the planet. One problem we have is that we constantly fail to distinguish between what is Biblical in the Church and what is cultural.

Whenever we move across cultures we must be careful to leave behind the cultural garments of our home Church and to plant relevant Biblical truth and practices within a whole new garment indigenous to the new culture.

It is necessary for us to determine the Biblical nature and functions of the Church; the essence of the Gospel; the character of true conversion; the responsibilities of discipleship and the descriptors of spiritual maturity to begin with.

In our Churches we have added much to basic Biblical Christianity that is cultural. If we are to share the Gospel in redemptive ways to another culture or generation we had better understand what the message is, how it relates and what are the implications of conversion within that culture.

[Colin] The point John makes about contextualisation is absolutely vital. When I began ministry as a planter in the early 1980s there was no discussion about this among planters in Australia. Now it is rightly becoming a rigorous part of our preparation and ministry as planters.



As well as this, with regards to describing Australia as post-Christian I also like to think of Australia as pre-Christian because this helps me see the opportunity just as seeing us as a post-Christian nation helps me see the challenges realistically. This is a great day for us if we will accept the challenge. We must not be intimidated but release the creative elements of our lives to the task.

But seeing ourselves rightly also involves accepting the reality of what we have added to the Gospel by way of western enculturalisation. This involves examining our message and methods to discern what must be stripped away. This will be a painful process but among new Churches being planted there is a natural and amazing opportunity to do this without major dislocation. In planting new Churches we can not only do evangelism better but we can complete the reformation of the Church quicker.

[Dean] There are several emerging grassroots “movements” which have identified the need for careful contextualization in the preparation stage and have created a community of faith amongst those who understand evangelism is no longer an event but a process in context. The Engell scale (of evangelism) has become second nature to these people.


The Engell scale, by nature, “forces” God’s people to contextualise. Succesful evangelism is no longer about getting the ‘kill’, it is working at moving people along the process from completely unaware of religion through to a conversion experience and on to becoming replicating followers of Christ.


With this in mind evangelism is no longer just the realm of the evangelist. It is now the responsibility of the whole Church! Once again the power is in the hands of the Church, not a select few.


3. Appropriate ministry models


[John]  Possibly the easiest task of the preparation stage is discovering and developing appropriate models of ministry. Note that I was careful to say “ministry” and not Church.” 


Today there are experimental models that I would call ministries which do not qualify Biblically to be called Churches.


I applaud those who have the courage to experiment and cheer them on to complete the task God has called them to do.


The appropriateness of the models will be determined by the worldview of the people we are seeking to reach.  For example, anyone seeking to reach people under thirty-five must adopt a model that has a strong relational base because this generation relates to friends more than to family.


Church leaders tell us that the Mega Church model based on marketing techniques is no longer the preferred option. In some Denominations this policy shift will create a vacuum. There are many possible models, but we must be discerning in our choices.

[Colin] The models of our ministries will look different. We are already seeing that and, I believe, accepting that as a fact. But there are some very big picture things that we must somehow never lose sight of.


What underpins this three stage process that John presents is that we retain the element of God’s Spirit in a continuous process of transformation. Even if we understand worldview, do our contextualisation and change our ministry models, we must not lose what God Himself brings to the table. Being people of the Spirit and prayer cannot be replaced.


My great concern is that we will become “clever” but not “consecrated.”


When I was a planter the first time around, I attended a conference on the new thing at that time – Church growth. For a while I think we lost the deep transforming work of the Spirit and became quick to analyse and adapt but not quick to yield. My prayer would be that what John is calling for will be adopted in lives that resound to the person and work of God the Holy Spirit.


My sense as a  Church Planter is that this dimension gives energy and vitality and effect to the disciplines we must adopt.


[Dean] I can also see a change regarding ministry models happening amongst my evangelist friends. The evangelists of the past who have been so successful in times gone by are no longer reaping the same size harvest in Australia. As a result, some of them are looking for someone to blame (eg lack of pre-crusade preparation on behalf of the Churches). This in turn increases the gap between Church leaders and evangelists.


These old models of evangelism won’t be successful in this postmodern culture.


“Modern” evangelists (as opposed to those who operate within the current postmodern context) are looking for harvest fields in which they can once again see dramatic numeric results. So many are turning to other countries.


The decline of the big time Evangelist’s hey-day has well and truly started and it won’t be long before it is complete.


Now I know this sounds dark and gloomy, but the story doesn’t end there. I believe the Scriptures – not even the gates of hell shall prevail! Before our very eyes we are witnessing grass roots movements that are changing the way Churches and evangelists work together to re-connect with everyday Australians in order to bring in the harvest. I for one am very hopeful.


[John] This is just the start of the discussion. If you would like to join us in the journey we would welcome your presence and comments. Together we may discover some principles that will help to shape the mission of the Church in the next five years.


Post your comments and experiences at www.theleadersguide.com


~ John Tanner (Minister at large, Southern Cross Institute and Missiologist)
~ Colin Stoodley (Training Director,
The Pines Training Centre)
~ Dean Thomas (Pastor/evangelist and pioneer in internet evangelism)

FIRE '07 - personal revival and church planting

Filed under: Articles — dean at 11:20 AM on Jul 18, 2007

Saturday 11th August - join us for authentic, passionate worship, prayer, community and teaching.

Church planter and pastor of Logan City’s Liberty Christian Church Steve Kennedy will be our speaker. He is an effective church planter who has some great insight into how to reach this generation for Jesus. If you lead a connect group or other ministry or home group, this day is for you.

8.30am-6pm... come for the whole day or choose a session. Cost $12 including lunch.

Registration brochures are available here.

Pines' graduates are invited to a reunion dinner on Friday 10th August at The Pines. We'll be looking at effective ways to reach this generation.

Join us at Fire ‘07 for a weekend of encouragement, personal spiritual transformation, worship and community, Pines’ style.

Hope you can make it ~ we're expecting great things from God.

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