Tony has a background in youth ministry, Christian spirituality, postmodernism and the emerging church and will be picking up some of these themes. Tony’s approach will be focused on conversation rather than lecturing. See more on his blog, tonyj.net.

See my posts on Tony’s most recent book, The New Christians, his On The Road video series, and on Left/Right polarisation in the USA church.

Here’s the program in its basic form. I’ll add details regarding times and places as they are finalized in the next week or so.

Wednesday October 1

• Lunch & afternoon conversation, Sunshine Coast
  (contact Steve Turner, 0412 459 429)
• Dinner & evening conversation, Brisbane
  (contact me 0439 828 718)

Thursday October 2

• Dinner & evening conversation, Gold Coast
  (contact me 0439 828 718)

Friday October 3

• Lunch & afternoon conversation with youth leaders, Brisbane
  Focus on spiritual practices and youth ministry
  (contact Michael Jeffrey, 0417 644 642)

Books by Tony Jones

• Postmodern Youth Ministry (Youth Specialties/Zondervan, 2001)
• Soul Shaper (Youth Specialties/Zondervan, 2003)
• Read, Think, Pray, Live (NavPress, 2003)
• Pray (NavPress, 2003)
• The Sacred Way (Zondervan, 2005)
• Divine Intervention: Encountering God Through the Ancient Practice of Lectio Divina (Th1nk Books, 2006)
• Introduction to The Most Difficult Journey You’ll Ever Make: The Pilgrim’s Progress: a Modernized Christian Classic (Paraclete Press, 2006)
• Introduction to You Converted Me: The Confessions of St. Augustine (Paraclete Press, 2006)
• Introduction and commentary on Brother Lawrence Practicing the Presence of God (Paraclete Press, 2007)
• Co-editor of An Emergent Manifesto of Hope (Baker Books, 2007)
• The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier (Jossey Bass, 2008)

Mark is described in the promotional material as a “theologically conservative and culturally liberal” pastor, holding Scripture firmly in two hands, while grounding two feet firmly in his culture.

Driscoll is disturbed by those who view Jesus as a “limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in His hair, who drank decaf and made pithy Zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes.” Mark’s keen on cultural relevance and clearly has a commitment to reaching the “man’s man” culture by using strong language, wearing trousers (as do most men I know), using firm handshakes, using just shampoo, and drinking strong coffee.

“In Revelation, Jesus is a prize fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up. I fear some are becoming more cultural than Christian, and without a big Jesus who has authority and hates sin as revealed in the Bible, we will have less and less Christians, and more and more confused, spiritually self-righteous blogger critics of Christianity”. (Relevant Magazine)

The open agenda here is that Mark is distancing himself from his earlier emerging church days hanging around with the likes of Doug Pagitt and Brian McLaren in the Young Leader Network (now known as Emergent).

Mark is known for his complementarian views. He teaches that men should practice headship and women should practice submission. Mars Hill Church has a policy of having only men in positions of authority or leadership. That’s a policy consistent with the Presbyterian Church of Australia. What concerns me is that this view is presented as the norm for the Reformed tradition. Most denominations within that tradition have moved on in more recent times - as can be explored in the World Alliance of Reformed Churches site.

The Burn Your Plastic Jesus event is being run by Mitchelton Presbyterian Church on Thursday, 28 August at Northside Auditorium, 151 Flockton St, Everton Park. See the 300 Men For Jesus site for more details. See Mark’s Wikipedia article and Resurgence Blog.

Pastors of the Future

The first video is a video I produced for the 2006 General Assembly to explain a new approach to commissioning and training lay pastors in the Uniting Church. Helen (Ennis) and Gary (myself) talk about what it’s like to be a pastor in 2012, looking back over four years of support, recognition and training.

The phrase, “From time to time and place to place” comes from the Uniting Church’s Basis of Union. It was the inspiration (you could sing it) for the brief musical piece I wrote for the beginning, middle and end of the video.

“The Uniting Church recognises that the type and duration of ministries to which women and men are called vary from time to time and place to place, and that in particular it comes into being in a period of reconsideration of traditional forms of the ministry, and of renewed participation of all the people of God in the preaching of the Word, the administration of the sacraments, the building up of the fellowship in mutual love, in commitment to Christ’s mission, and in service of the world for which he died.”

Vinni’s Yard

The second video is a sample from Enhance, a collection of Flash-based videos put together by Michael Jeffery and his team at Digistry. This clip retells Jesus’ Parable of the Vineyard (Matthew 21:33-46, Mark 12:1-12, Luke 20:9-19) through the lens of The Godfather. The script and music are by Joh Knijnenburg. I’m now working on a YouTube channel for Digistry.

TEAR Australia is a Christian development, relief and advocacy organisation responding to global poverty and injustice. Their motivation comes from their conviction that God loves all people, and desires a just and compassionate world in which all people have adequate resources and the opportunity to live meaningful and dignified lives.

With the retirement of Steve Bradbury, their long-serving National Director, TEAR Australia is seeking a suitably qualified person to lead TEAR Australia. The Director is supported by a dedicated, professional team of four direct reports and 50 staff. The role involves strategic and operational leadership of the organisation, and representation of TEAR Australia in the public sphere - including relationships with Australian churches and with international development partners and alliances.

TEAR Australia is looking for someone that has a passion for justice, success in leadership and management, and is familiar with key aid and community development issues. The new director will need to be comfortable in cross-cultural contexts, understand the Australian church environment and be able to articulate the biblical foundations of TEAR Australia’s mission.

Enquiries are welcome to TEAR Australia’s lead consultant, Judy Wong-See at Credence International, Level 14, 309 Kent Street, Sydney NSW 2000 on (02) 9994 8044 or email judy.ws at credenceintl.com
Applications close Monday 16th June 2008.

This year, Friday August 29 & Saturday, August 30, the two-day Reel Dialogue Conference will bring together internationally renowned speakers, authors and theologians to explore the theological dimensions of film and pop culture, including:

Robert K. Johnston and Catherine Barsotti (Reel Spirituality, Useless Beauty: Ecclesiastes through the Lens of Contemporary Film, Reframing Theology and Film: New Focus for an Emerging Discipline, Finding God in the Movies: 33 Films of Reel Faith)

Mark Seton, University of Sydney, (CineDialogue, Screenvision)

Sandy Boyce (National Faith Development Consultant for the Uniting Church in Australia)

Charlie Brammall (Chaplain the entertainment industry and head of ENTER - The Entertainment Bible ministry);

Grenville Kent
(filmmaker and lecturer at Wesley Institute).

The conference will be held over two full days (9am - 5.30pm) with an optional dinner on Friday August 29 to talk and network with the speakers and a film and group discussion held on Saturday afternoon.

Partnering with The ELM Centre, Uniting Church NSW Synod Youth Unit and Communications Unit and media partners Sydney’s 103.2 Radio Station and Insights magazine, the conference is designed for ministers, ministry agents and interested film enthusiasts.

Register securely online here using your credit card. Early bird prices close July 17, 2008, so book now! For accommodation details click here.

BLACKSTAR has developed an almost ‘cult-like’ following down at the West End Greenflea markets selling its range of organic coffee beans and boutique iced cold pressed coffee. It’s with excitement that Blackstar now opens its roastery doors to the public where it can finally offer espresso beverages as well as its full range of single origin coffees.

Blackstar was started by Marty Richards and Evonne Andrews, a married couple who have invested heavily in social enterprise in the West End suburb. Marty and Evonne, in partnership with Ali Baba and Mailka Karimi, began roasting fair trade beans in the Souths Logan Magpies rugby league club rooms at Davies Park, West End. They expanded with a coffee cart in the Brisbane City Council Green Square complex in Fortitude Valley.

Blackstar was inspired by and continues to be supported by Matthew Lamason, one of New Zealand’s most experienced fairtrade roasting personalities, director of Peoples Coffee, a Wellington based Fairtrade roastery.

“It’s great to see boutique coffee taking root in Brisbane. The quality of a good cup of coffee is enhanced further through fairer trade initiatives like that of Fairtrade. Blackstar plays an important role as a local leader in the area of speciality roasted fairtrade coffee here in Brisbane”, says Lamason.

Customers can expect to taste a consistently high standard of speciality espresso drinks, cold pressed coffees as well as a full range of single origin coffees, and blended brews. Nestled in amongst a working, coffee roasting environment, coffee fiends can grab their favorite espresso while chatting to the roaster about the best range of coffee to suit their home brewing needs.

While excellent coffee is at the front of everything at Blackstar, the business has the interesting and unique aspect of being a social enterprise. It has been a participant in the Brisbane Social Enterprise Hub, a joint initiative of BCC, PriceWaterHouseCoopers, and Social Ventures Australia (SVA).

The Espresso bar is open 6 days from 6am to midday, and is situated across the road from 115 Jane st, just off Montague road, West End.

For more information, or to make fresh coffee orders, visit www.blackstarcoffee.com.au, or join up with the Blackstar Facebook Group.

Hide and Seek

“No Peter I wasn’t playing hide and seek. I only told you that so you would leave me alone. You see I’m an important guy…”

Church Meeting or Football

“Rule number two. You’re not allowed to have any fun unless you’re laughing at how dumb the devil is”.

Naming the Sinners

“Frank we all know what you did, but I can’t repeat it…because I’m Jesus”.

“John you drank too much wine the other night, not way too much just enough to make me angry”.

Jesus in the Temple

“Okay get me off this thing, if i can walk on water i can walk to the door”.

Thanks to Mart the Rev

Filming was shot by NZ director/producer Andrew Adamson, whose earlier work includes Shrek I, 2 and 3, and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Familiar NZ scenes for me were the Dart River near Glenorchy (I spent a week walking through there in 1991) and Cathedral Cove on the Coromandel Peninsula (I spent Christmas there in 1982). Studio shots were filmed in Barrandov Studios, Prague, Czech Republic. Other scenes were filmed in Slovenia and Poland.

As Trumpkin says, “You may find Narnia a more savage place than you remember”. Adamson takes the stories of battle hinted at by C.S. Lewis and brings them to the foreground. People and creatures die, though without any clear bloodshed. This is a family movie after all. A whole new sequence is added to the plot - the storming of the Telmarine castle. Battle scenes are provided with elaborate plot twists.

In the book the Pevensies (Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy) connect up with the Narnians towards the end. For the sake of dramatic interplay between the characters (including tension between Peter and Caspian) that meeting is introduced much earlier.

Adamson brings the story into the 21st century with an alternative to the C.S. Lewis sheltering of the female gender. Susan is clearly engaged in battle in the movie and enjoys a romantic attraction to Caspian. “It would never have worked out”, she says.

There are subtle flavours added by the casting team. Caspian, Miraz and the other Telmarines speak with Hispanic accents, a reference to their pirate origins. The centaurs appear to have an African origin. It makes good sense in terms of increasing the ethnic spread of the audience, but runs the risk of perpetuating the English jingoism that formed the backdrop of C.S. Lewis’ world.

My favourite character would have to be Trumpkin, played by Peter Dinklage. This dwarf has a deeply cynical, humorous and yet reflective character that appears to have been developed through years of patient long suffering.

The theology of this C.S. Lewis novel is subtle, with hints of questions relating to the absence and invisible nature of Jesus. Why can some see him and others not? Would the plot have been different if Lucy and her siblings had responded to Aslan’s guidance earlier? Aslan twice reminds Lucy that things don’t happen the same way twice, once in a dream sequence and once in waking mode. Was that a glitch in the script or an example of dramatic irony?

Be prepared for a long movie with stunning cinematography, simmering effects and a storyline that will keep you guessing.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, will be released in cinemas nationally in Australia on June 5. Heritage HM will also be delivering a range of resources to churches and schools Australia wide. For details contact 07 5445 6865 or email info at astounded.tv.

The book (and now screen play) focuses on Arthur, a Maori man who is known to the residents of Ponsonby, Auckland, New Zealand, as the self-proclaimed second son of God. Arthur has a mission, which includes finding the Queen of Heaven (who turns out to be Margaret of Pakuranga). He interacts with the local vicar, a few homeless people and people living in the boarding houses of Ponsonby, to challenge the status quo of respectable society.

Mike, when he wrote the novel, was lecturer at the Baptist College of New Zealand in Auckland, a role he’d taken on after years pastoring at Ponsonby Baptist. Mike resigned and moved to Dunedin, knowing that many Baptists would have trouble with the gloriously graphic sex scene in the novel, let alone the ‘blasphemous’ exploration of a psychiatric patient’s claims to be the second son of God.

Arthur will be played by Rawiri Paratene , known around the world for his role as Koro in Whale Rider. I remember Rawiri’s poetry performances (with jazz pianist Mike Nock) from his time in Dunedin when he was Robert Burns Fellow at Otago University. Rawiri is likely to be joined by Timothy Spall, James Nesbitt and John Rhys-Davies.

Scottish film director Gillies MacKinnon is working with NZ producer Tim Sanders, (LOTR/Whale Rider), UK producers Pip Piper (One Small Barking Dog) and Rob Taylor, Blue Hippo Media, Birmingham.

See the Insatiable Moon Promo online in quicktime.