Mark Conner's Space

Movements that Change the World

Steve Addison is a lifelong student of movements that renew and expand the Christian faith. Thankfully, he has now published his many years of reflection and research into an inspiring new book, Movements that Change the World.  It should help to fuel church planting movements everywhere.

Steve notes that movements that change the world are characterised by five things:

1. White-hot faith. Missionary movements begin with men and women who encounter the living God and surrender in loving obedience to His call.

2. Commitment to a cause. Nothing is more important that their faith in Christ and his cause.

3. Contagious relationships. When movements spread rapidly, they do so through pre-existing networks of relationships.

4. Rapid mobilisation. New converts are won and fresh workers are recruited so that there is a constant supply of workers for the mission.

5. Adaptive methods. Ministry methods of movements are supremely adaptable, flexible, and transferable in contrast to the static, rigid, and anchored nature of the institutional form of church. The heart of the Gospel remains the same but the forms are changed to fit the context and to serve the needs of an expanding movement.

For further information, you can also visit Steve's blog and web site or click here. To whet your appetite, click here for a free PDF of the Introduction from Steve's book.

This book is important reading for church leaders and disciples everywhere. After all, Jesus didn't found a religion. He started a people movement! As Steve states, "movements change people and changed people change the world."

P.S. Interestingly, Ben Wong, Director of the Cell Church Mission Network based in Hong Kong, notes these five dynamics of all rapidly reproducing church movements:

1. They have 'fire' - passion, zeal, and international motivation.

2. They write their own songs that carry the movement 'ethos.'

3. They train their own leaders.

4. They publish their own material (books and other media) to pass on the truth and movement story to the next generation.

5. They are relevant - they reach out and meet the needs of the society they are within.

Insightful observations ...

Creation Care

The subject of Creation Care is becoming an important one within the Christian church. "Creation Care", rather than "environmentalism", is the term used by many evangelicals to refer to the responsibility that followers of Christ have to take care of God's earth. 

Influential Christian thinker, Francis Schaeffer once said, "... nature: it is not our own. It belongs to God, and we are to exercise our dominion over these things not as though entitled to exploit them, but as things borrowed or held in trust. We are to use them realising they are not ours intrinsically. Man's dominion is under God's dominion." [From his book Pollution and the Death of Man]

Issues such as the environment, ecology, pollution, and global warming should interest Christians, as we are called to be good stewards of God's earth. 

For a good introduction to a biblical theology of Creation Care, click here for a free PDF of a chapter by Bret Stephenson and Stephen Bouma-Prediger from their book Living the Good Life on God's Earth.

Another very good book on this topic is: For the Beauty of the Earth: A Christian Vision for Creation Care. The Evangelical Environment Network also has an informative web site. Click here to access a website on Creation Care for pastors.

For Dummies and Idiots ...

One of the things I really enjoy is learning new things or learning to do things I already know even better. The book of Proverbs tells us that an openness to new things and a passion for learning is a key to gaining wisdom for life. Today, there really is no excuse for not learning because there are so many ways to learn and grow. Personal growth can come from experience, mentors, or training. Another way is through reading. Through the minimal cost of a book, you gain the opportunity to glean on what is often a lifetime of learning from an expert in their field.

There are two series of books that are fun and educational to read. They have books on a wide variety of topics and they're very comprehensive. 

1. First, there is the DUMMIES range of books. Check out their web site for a full list of topics that they have books on. I just finished reading 'Quickbooks for Dummies.' I use the Quickbooks software program to help my dad manage his book business. I've been using it for years but I learned heaps of new thingsand time-saving tips through this book.

2. Then there are the IDIOTS guides. Their web site has a huge list of topics that have been written about. 

Come on ... you might feel like a dummy or an idiot in a particular area of knowledge but you don't have to stay that way :)  

  

The Amazing Human Body (Pt.2)

Here are a some more interesting facts about the human body ...

42. There is more bacteria in your mouth than the human population of the United States and Canada combined.

43. Every square inch of the human body has an average of 32 million bacteria on it.

44. A fetus acquires fingerprints at the age of three months

45. You sit on the biggest muscle in your body, the gluteus maximus a.k.a. the butt. Each of the two cheeky muscles tips the scales at about two pounds (not including the overlying fat layer).

46. The tiniest muscle, the stapedius of the middle ear, is just one-fifth of an inch long.

47. The average human head weighs about 10 pounds.

48. The average human brain weighs three pounds.

49. The DNA helix measures 80 billionths of an inch wide.

50. Your eyeballs are three and a half percent salt.

51. Head lice actually prefer to live on clean heads, not on dirty ones.

52. If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall and have a neck twice the length of a normal human's neck.

53. It takes about 20 seconds for a red blood cell to circle the whole body.

54. An average human drinks about 16,000 gallons of water in a lifetime.

55. Beards are the fastest growing hairs on the human body. If the average man never trimmed his beard, it would grow to nearly 30 feet long in his lifetime.

56. Humans shed about 600,000 particles of skin every hour - about 1.5 pounds a year. By 70 years of age, an average person will have lost 105 pounds of skin.

57. It only takes 7 lbs of pressure to rip your ear off.

58. When you sneeze, all your bodily functions stop - even your heart.

59. Human teeth are almost as hard as rocks.

60. You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching T.V.

The Amazing Human Body (Pt.1)

In one of my favourite Psalms, David says this to God:

"You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous — how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed." [Psalms 139:13-16. NLT]

A friend of mine sent me these interesting facts about the human body ...

1. The average red blood cell lives for 120 days.

2. There are 2.5 trillion (give or take) of red blood cells in your body at any moment. To maintain this number, about two and a half million new ones need to be produced every second by your bone marrow. That's like a new population of the city of Toronto every second.

3. Considering all the tissues and cells in your body, 25 million new cells are being produced each second. That's a little more than the population of Australia - every second !

4. A red blood cell can circumnavigate your body in under 20 seconds.

5. Nerve Impulses travel at over 400 km/hr (25 miles/hr).

6. A sneeze generates a wind of 166 km/hr (100 miles/hr), and a cough moves out at 100 km/hr (60 miles/hr).

7. Our heart beats around 100,00 times every day.

8. Our blood is on a 60,000-mile journey.

9. Our eyes can distinguish up to one million colour surfaces and take in more information than the largest telescope known to man.

10. Our lungs inhale over two million litres of air every day, without even thinking.

11. We give birth to 100 billion red cells every day.

12. When we touch something, we send a message to our brain at 124 mph.

13. We exercise at least 30 muscles when we smile.

14. We are about 70 percent water.

15. We make one litre of saliva a day.

16. Our nose is our personal air-conditioning system: it warms cold air, cools hot air and filters impurities.

17. In one square inch of our hand we have nine feet of blood vessels, 600 pain sensors, 9000 nerve endings, 36 heat sensors and 75 pressure sensors.

18. We have copper, zinc, cobalt, calcium, manganese, phosphates, nickel and silicon in our bodies.

19. It is believed that the main purpose of eyebrows is to keep sweat out of the eyes.

20. A person can expect to breathe in about 40 pounds of dust over his/her lifetime.

To Jack - A Tribute to C.S. Lewis by Nicole Conner

How do you do a SHORT blog post (instructions of him who must be obeyed) on C.S. Lewis? There are few writers who have so profoundly affected my spiritual formation as the writings of C.S. Lewis. For a detailed bio of his life visit this web site or this one.

“Jack”, as he was known by his family and friends, was a prolific writer (he also used pseudonyms like Clive Hamilton, N. W. Clerk, and Nat Whilk), delighting children and adults alike with his Chronicles of Narnia series and totally undoing a stoic adult in books like, A Grief Observed or The Problem of Pain. For the Lewis beginner a good book to start would be Mere Christianity, which begins with a discussion of some reasons for believing that God exists, and why it matters that He does, and then continues with an account of the redeeming work of God in Christ. In this book, Lewis tries to confine himself to the core beliefs of Christianity and steers clear of disagreements between denominations – resulting in the word “Mere” in the title.

Lewis was a reluctant convert to Christianity confessing in his book Surprised by Joy (1955): "I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England." He was never short of critics, some who went as far as calling him a dangerous heretic and infidel, while others sought to debunk his arguments, such as John Beversluis (C.S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion).

Jack’s friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien is legendary. Tolkien played a key role in Lewis’s conversion and Lewis helped expand his fictional writing. Both of them taught at Oxford, both were interested in literature, and both wrote fictional books with strong Christian themes and principles. Like any good friendship there were strong disagreements such as Tolkien’s dislike for the first Narnia book, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, which he thought was too strong on Christian themes and messages and he didn’t approve of the way Lewis seemed to beat the reader over the head with such obvious symbols. The two of them were members of an informal Oxford group of writers and teachers known as 'The Inklings.' After Lewis met and married Joy Gresham, he grew apart from his old friends and Tolkien took it personally.

I have read several biographies of Lewis and would recommend Jack – A Life of C.S. Lewis by George Sayer. George was a long standing friend of Jack’s and also a member of the Inklings.

There is no one quite as quotable as Lewis (I am not including the Bible or Jesus in that statement). Below are some samples. You can gather more from a great collection called The Quotable Lewis, edited by Wayne Martindale and Jerry Root.

• "A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell."

• "God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself because it is not there. There is no such thing."

• "There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.'

• "Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about him. The conclusion I dread is not 'So there’s no God after all,' but 'So this is what God is really like. Deceive yourself no longer.'" [after Joy’s death]

• "It is hard to have patience with people who say, 'There is no death' or 'Death doesn't matter.' There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn't matter." [From A Grief Observed]

• "A rejection, or in Scripture’s strong language, a crucifixion of the natural self, is the passport to everlasting life. Nothing that has not died will be resurrected."

• "Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art . . . It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival."

To finish, here is an excerpt from The Last Battle, the last book of the Narnia series, the last page, and the last paragraph:

" . . .. and as he spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was on the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read; which goes on forever; in which every chapter is better than the one before."

Nicole Conner

Everyday Justice, Everyday Choices

Our church community has recently launched a new initiative called Everyday Justice, Everyday Choices.It's purpose is to encourage people to participate in social action through everyday living. By providing information and resources to the CityLife congregation about ethical and fair trade practices, people will be empowered to make informed and ethical decisions; thus advocating for justice through their everyday choices.

For further details, including a brief video profile, click here.

An information evening will be held on Tuesday, July 21st at 7.30 pm at CityLife Church - Knox in the Visitor's Lounge. Everyone is welcome. Please RSVP to EverydayJustice@CityLifeChurch.com to ensure we have enough space and fair trade coffee for all.

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy. [Proverbs 31:8-9. NLT]-

One thing to change your world ...

What one thing could you change right now that would have the biggest impact on your life?

Is it starting to do something that you're not doing?

Is it stopping doing something?

Is it doing more of something ... or less of something?

Have a think about it ... then why not go ahead and make the change. Remember, what you tolerate, you will never change.

I pray that you have the courage and strength to do so.

P.S. For me, it's trying to consistently grab one full hour each morning to invest in my personal well-being - through prayer, Bible reading, exercise, and a healthy breakfast. If I could do this consistently, it would have the biggest impact in my life.

New Blog Commenting Guidelines

When I began my blog just under two years ago (August 17th, 2007), I had a number of experienced bloggers advise me to not allow any comments. They had chosen to close off their blogs from any comments or to only allow approved comments to be published. Why? Because in each case, their blog had been somewhat hijacked by a few individuals who tended to dominate the conversations and/or who bullied other people.

I heard their advice but decided to go with open comments on my blog. So far, it's gone pretty well with just under 2,864 comments on the 514 posts I have made. To this point I have only had to delete a few comments due to their profanity. Overall, the dialogue and interaction has been helpful and informative. None of us have the full perspective on any topic and I believe that we learn best by interacting respectfully and in a spirit of humility with those who have different points of view.

Unfortunately, with the recent blog post on the topic of 'Homosexuality', the commenting section degenerated to a point where it became un-constructive. This really disappointed me. 

As a result I have created some new guidelines for commenting on this blog. Here they are:

All visitors are welcome to post their own personal comments on the majority of my blog posts. However, there are a few basic guidelines (these are also now displayed on the upper left hand side of the blog):

1. I reserve the right refuse comments that are inappropriate, that use offensive language, or that are a personal attack on myself or other people.

2. Comments should be brief (preferably under 100 words), polite, constructive, and relative to the topic.

3. You must state your real full name to have your comments posted.

4. I will continue to read all comments posted but, as previously, will not be able to respond to each one of them.

If you are happy to abide by these simple guidelines, then I welcome your comments.

Mark Conner

P.S. You can now Search this entire blog for any content. Simply type a word or topic in the upper right hand corner search box and hit Enter or click Search. I also hope you like the new graphics design. Enjoy!

 

Jesus is Watching You!

A burglar broke into a house, shining his torch around and looking for valuables.  He had just picked up a CD player when a strange, disembodied voice echoed from the dark saying: "Jesus is watching you."

 

He nearly jumped out of his skin, clicked off his torch and froze.

When he heard nothing more he continued. Just as he pulled  the stereo out, he heard: "Jesus is watching you."  Freaked out, he flashed his light around frantically. Finally, in the corner of the room his light beam came to rest on a parrot. 

 

"Did you say that?" he hissed at the parrot.  "Yep," the parrot confessed, "I'm just trying to warn you that he's watching you." The burglar relaxed. "Warn me, huh? Who in the world are you?" 

 

"Moses," replied the bird.  "Moses?" the burglar laughed. "What kind of people would name a bird Moses?" ... and the bird said ... "The same kind that would name their Rottweiler 'Jesus'!"

How to Write a Book (Pt 2)

Here are a variety of resources that I have found helpful in the whole process of writing a book:

1. Self-Publishing:

Check out Self Publishing, which is an excellent web site dedicated to helping people publish their own material. Click here, here and here for some similar web sites. There are also many publishers who will take manuscript submissions.

2. Book-Writing:

Go to any bookshop or visit amazon.com online and purchase a book on book-writing. There's so much you can learn from reading about book-writing. Aother idea to type 'book writing' in a Google search engine. You'll find lots of free advice online.

3. Writing Guides:

Obtain a writing style guide that deals with spelling, grammar and lots of interesting things like that. It will help you become a better writer and it's always good to have a reference book like this nearby.

Happy writing!

P.S. A few final thoughts on 'books':

"But, my child, let me give you some further advice: Be careful, for writing books is endless, and much study wears you out." [Solomon - Ecclesiastes 12:12. NLT]

"When you come, be sure to bring the coat I left with Carpus at Troas. Also bring my books, and especially my papers." [Paul to Timothy - 2 Timothy 4:13. NLT]

"Write down what you have seen — both the things that are now happening and the things that will happen." [The angel to John - Revelation 1:19, NLT]

"Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written." [John - John 21:25. NLT]

How to Write a Book (Pt 1)

With the recent release of my new book Prison Break: Finding Personal Freedom, I've had a few people ask me, "How do you write a book?" and "Where do you find the time to write?" So I thought I'd give you a brief outline of how to write and publish your own book (just in case you're interested).

1. Come up with a 'big idea'. This is usually a specific single focus that you want to write about. It could be a topic, an issue, or maybe your story. For me it was helping people find freedom in their personal life.

2. Start drafting an outline. Brain storm the kinds of things you could say about your big idea. What parts of the topic could you explore? For me, I listed a whole bunch of things that can become a prison in our lives. This wasn't too difficult because our teaching team did a series on this a few years back.

3. Set aside time for writing. I did most of my writing early in the morning, on some free evenings, and on weekends, over a period of about 6 months (on and off). In fact, at the beginning of this year, I set a goal to have my book published by July 1st. I created a plan back from that date and allocated time for each step. Everything didn't go as originally planned, but I did make my target date.

4. Start writing each chapter. I typed directly into Microsoft Word and made each chapter a separate file. Keep the formatting simple at this stage. You may want to draft out a brief outline or breakdown of each individual chapter too, so that you have a bit of a map to follow. But the main thing is just start writing!

[For my Prison Break book, I had someone transcribe a number of my sermons word for word. Then I added in extra material, deleted a bunch of things, and massaged the text to be more of a reading style than a listening style. That's the first time I've done this but it sure saved me a lot of time]

5. Write your introduction and conclusion. These are usually best left until last, because then you have the full perspective of what is in the rest of the book. This is also a good time to check all references, including any footnotes or quotes, to ensure you that you have acknowledged all sources correctly.

6. Proof-read everything. I had a number of people proof-read my book for me, including a friend with a degree in journalism. Fresh eyes see new things. Even then, you're sure to miss something. I've already found a few mistakes in my new book, which we'll correct for the next printing.

7. Design a cover. If you don't have experience with this, engage the services of a graphics designer. You might need graphics help with the inside text too. I formatted the internal pages of my book in Adobe InDesign 4.0, which is an excellent program that enables you to save to a PDF file ready for printing.

8. Find a printer. You can do an internet search for Australian printers. I received quotes from about seven different printers across the country and eventually went with someone locally recommended by a friend. The more copies you print the cheaper it is per unit. If you are only running off a limited amount of books, you might conisder photo-copying or digital printing.

9. Contact various bookshops to see if they will sell your book for you. It often pays to do this beforehand so that you can assess the interest level in your book. You will need to sell to them at a significant discount so that they can cover their marketing and sales costs, but then again, they have the ability to get your book to people you may never meet. Of course, you can also sell directly or via the internet.

Well, that's the basics. Tomorrow, I'll share a few helpful book-writing resources with you.

'How the Mighty Fall' by Jim Collins (Book Review)

Jim Collins is the best-selling author of Built to Last and Good to Great. Collins is a student of companies and organisations - great ones, good ones, weak ones, and failed ones. His latest book (which I picked up recently in an airport bookshop in the USA), based on extensive research, is How the Mighty Fall. In it he proposes that, "Whether you prevail or fail, endure or die, depends more on what you do to yourself than on what the world does to you."

In his research, which took more than four years, Collins sought to discover whether decline can be detected early and avoided. Decline is a bit like a disease. You can look healthy yet really be sick. His conclusion is that by understanding the stages of decline, leaders can substantially reduce their chances of falling all the way to the bottom.

Here are the five stages of decline:

1. Hubris Born of Success (arrogance and pride)

2. Undisciplined Pursuit of More (over-reaching for more and more)

3. Denial of Risk and Peril (ignoring the warning signs)

4. Grasping for Salvation (grasping for quick fixes)

5. Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death (atrophy settles in)

Every organisation, no matter how great, is vulnerable to decline. There is no law of nature that the most powerful will inevitably remain at the top. According to Collins, anyone can fall and most eventually do.

In its essence, the church is 'people' and is better represented by a living system (or organism) than an organisation. However, these organisational lessons about how the mighty fall apply directly to local churches and Christian ministries, as well as to individuals, especially leaders.

Collin's latest book was an interesting read, especially after having just read the Old Testament book of Daniel where we see great and powerful rulers getting caught up in pride, then falling dramatically. Nebuchadnezzar is a classic example (Daniel 4). He was warned ahead of time but ignored the warning and was humbled greatly. This is a good lesson for all of us.

Here are some wise sayings from God's Word:

"Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall." [Proverbs 16:18. NLT]

"If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall." [1 Corinthians 10:12-13. NLT]

 "All of you, serve each other in humility, for 'God opposes the proud but favors the humble.' So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor." [1 Peter 5:5-6. NLT]

Funny Questions

A few funny questions to start off the week ...

1. Why does the sun lighten our hair, but darken our skin?
2. Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?
3. Why is "abbreviated" such a long word?
4. Why is it that doctors call what they do "practice"?
5. Why is the person who invests money for you called a "broker"?
6. Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called "rush hour"?
7. Is it OK to use the AM radio after noon?
8. Why didn't Noah swat those two mosquitoes?
9. If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?
10. Can you cry under water?
11. Why does a round pizza come in a square box?
12. Why is that people say they "sleep like a baby" when most babies wake up every two hours?
13. How do "please keep off the grass" signs get there?
14. What does the "K" in "K-Mart" actually stand for?

Have a terrific week!

A New Book: Prison Break

I have just written a new book called Prison Break: Finding Personal Freedom. 

Living in our broken world creates the possibility of becoming trapped by various negative emotions and habits that can easily become like a prison around us. The book contains practical principles for finding freedom from common problems such as anger, fear, worry, rejection, depression, bad habits, addictions, and spiritual bondages. With God's help, we can make a prison break - beginning today.

I am really excited about this book and pray that it will be a help to many people. 

The book is available from WORD Australia bookstores or Koorong.

Thanks for spreading the word :) 

Mark Conner

Recommendation

"To some extent we all have our personal prisons, in these hectic and stress-filled times. This is why Mark Conner's book Prison Break is so timely and helpful. Whether your personal prison is one of anger or fear, worry or some destructive habit, addictions or whatever, Mark offers help that free you from your prison. The book is practical yet sound, both psychologically and biblically, and easy to read. I am sure no reader will be disappointed."

Archibald D. Hart, Ph.D. FPPR.

Senior Professor of Psychology and Dean Emeritus

Graduate School of Psychology: Fuller Theological Seminary - Pasadena, California

Do Dogs Go to Heaven?

On a lighter note ... do you think dogs go to heaven?

Two churches in a southern USA town are fighting it out. You could call it a 'signs debate' between Our Lady of Martyrs Catholic Church and Cumberland Presbyterian, a fundamentalist church, which are right across the street from each other. 

From top to bottom you will see the response and counter-response over time ...

Are you feeling more Catholic or Presbyterian on this issue?