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.... Read more →

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... Read more →

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... Read more →

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... Read more →

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]... Read more →

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... Read more →

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,... Read more →

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... Read more →

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... Read more →

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... Read more →

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... Read more →

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... Read more →

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... Read more →

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... Read more →

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? What will the Presbyterians say next? Read more →