It’s always amazing to me how fast news travels, and so this is my attempt to get ahead of the jungle drums and let you know about an important change happening for me and our family.

WHAT’S THE BIG NEWS? The big scoop is that, as of 28 March 2010, I will no longer be serving as Senior Pastor of Warnbro Community Church. I’m sure that this will come as a surprise, and perhaps even a shock to some, but in recent months I have felt certain that God has been calling me step down from this role that I have held for almost 10 years. It’s a huge decision, but one we feel is totally right for us at this time.

I want to be quite clear about this…. I am NOT leaving Warnbro because of some issue or big problem.

Stop, and read that again.

There are NO leadership disputes or disagreements. Far from it! This is an awesome church, and has been a wonderful place to serve. This has been one of the most difficult aspects of leaving… it’s not because some issue or problem. It’s about a sense of God’s leading in our lives. I have been very privileged to serve and lead Warnbro Church, and it has been a huge part of my family’s life for this past decade. I believe that the church has a huge future ahead of it, and I have done my best to lay a platform for what is next, but I also firmly believe that I’m not the one to lead it there. I believe that God has someone better suited to take on that task. My skills and gifts lie elsewhere, and I am stepping aside from this role to allow God to guide me into what is next for me. The church has some very exciting directions and projects for the future, but I just don’t sense I’m the one God is calling to lead Warnbro into those things. It’s really that simple. It was a fairly recent revelation to me, and I’m stepping out in obedience. If that sounds crazy to you, I’d have to agree… seems a little crazy to me too, in many respects, except for the fact that I’m quite certain this is what God wants.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR ME? I have no idea! I’m not leaving to take up some other position. There is no “better” job in the mix. No other church or ministry under consideration. We’re just going to trust God that he’ll provide as he always does. I’m ready and feel strongly the time is right for me to begin the transition to the next thing. What is that? I’m not 100% sure to be honest, but I believe that faith is about small steps in the right direction, and I’m taking this one step now and we’ll see what is next. We’re open to wherever God takes us, even if that means a role outside of a formal church or ministry role. In fact, I feel that our next stop may well be in the marketplace or a non-church role.

WHEN DO WE FINISH UP? We have committed to being here until Sunday, March 28 to assist as much as we can with the preparation process for transitioning to another senior leader. That’s the weekend right before Easter. That’s 8 weeks away, and I’m sure it will be a busy time for us all.

SO… I would appreciate it if you would continue to pray for the O’Brien family and the Warnbro Church family – it’s a scary, interesting, unexpected place for us all to be. God will provide and guide, as only he can. But, it’s also kind of exciting. We’ll keep you posted.

Our world is being consumed by consumers. They’re everywhere. And the Church is not immune to the effects of consumerism. Tragically, in many respects, one of key approaches to growing a local church is centred largely around figuring out what people think they need, and then developing programs and facilities to meet those needs. Spiritually, those of us in church leadership are acutely aware that felt needs are seldom our real needs, but we pragmatically recognise that we need to gain an audience to discuss deeper things, and that audience is gained through connecting with shallow things.

I love the quote above… I came across it through Michael Hyatt, and I love the picture it paints. Whether you’re talking about eco-issues or whether you’re talking about the Church, it’s a profound word of wisdom.

I see one of the greatest challenges in the contemporary churches quickly becoming the grip that baby boomers have on the shaping of what church looks like. Baby boomers grew up in a world that they built and shaped for their own purposes, and they were good at it. They are used to things being made to suit them. They helped create the consumerist mentality that has now been taken to new heights by the Gen Y lot (Gen X-ers seemed to rebel a little against their parents in this), but the boomers still have the power because they have the resources, even as they quickly move into retirement.

In churches, boomers have the power to plant for the future or to consume until their last moment. It’s a tough choice. Consuming is more instantly gratifying and enjoyable. Planting for the future often means I won’t get to enjoy it, and I may not even like it. But a great society is built when we unselfishly realise that we either leave a blessing or a curse to the next generation through the decisions we make now.

I don’t think these issues are new. I think they’re just more sharply recognisable in our fast-moving and dynamic world. Personally, I feel very strongly that if I am going to a church when I am eighty that is doing all the stuff *I* like and love, then we’re probably in big trouble for the future. I know I will struggle with being a part of something I may even intensely dislike at a personal level, but I’ve made the commitment to be a planter and not a consumer. I want to be part of something great, not just something that lives as long as I prop it up.

If you’re looking for a highly intelligent and sensible discussion about the existence and implications of God in the world from an elite mathematician, then you MUST listen to this.

John Lennox is Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University. I would LOVE to see him in debate and dialogue with Richard Dawkins, whose writings to me are flawed with terrible logic and an incorrect understanding of science and the scientific method. Lennox slices through the smoke and mirrors to address the real issues.

As an aside, I totally agree with Lennox’s view on creationism and some of the creation science stuff out there… “confusing the big thing with small things”… he’s a smart, articulate guy… worth the 30 minutes investment.

And, yes, I am a little biased towards Mathematicians…

1. The devil really did do it

2. God is disciplining us (we don’t like to include this one much, but it’s there in the Bible)

3. We’re dumb and did it to ourselves

4. Someone else was dumb and did it to us (directly or indirectly)

It was interesting to see the Sydney Anglicans wrestling with their crisis at a theological level (very Sydney-Anglican-like, I guess!). Beyond all that, I can truly say that I fully understand the emotions of Peter Jensen… I know exactly how he feels. One of the few times I can say that I’ve been exactly there, and I know the grief he is talking about.

As a leader, you may not have caused it or had a direct hand in it, but you own it at a deep level, sometimes more than the people who caused the havoc. I guess that’s what makes leaders different. Ownership & responsibility… a deep sense of stewardship.

There’s always a smart alec somewhere who will tell you in the midst of your valleys that “it could always be worse…”

And you usually just feel like smacking them in the snoz.

Last year, we had a very tough year financially as a church, and we really had to dig deep in the faith well to ride the storm. Well, I think I could truly say, things could have been much worse!

“More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.”

I don’t want to believe it, but I’ve had enough conversations with certain types of Evangelicals to know that it has the ring of truth, and it’s very disturbing because it couldn’t be further from Jesus.

Torture is stupid, not just on moral grounds, but because it doesn’t generally work. The CIA has some interesting case studies of Vietnam-era examples of the manifest failure of torture to provide anything other than extraordinary examples of the human ability to adapt itself to survival.

This week, I had a conversation with someone that illustrated to me the need we have to be people of courage as followers of Jesus.

The conversation centred around a particular situation that required resolution but taking those steps to resolve the matter were difficult and even unpleasant. The person in question obviously wasn’t keen on dealing with it. I understand that entirely. I really do. It was a sticky, messy and unpleasant thing that would be better just to ignore and avoid if possible. But, with Jesus, avoidance is seldom the solution. Jesus isn’t ok with skirting around problems and pretending they’re not there. Instead, Jesus is far more interested in sorting things out, getting to the heart of the matter and transforming situations, relationships and issues from muck to something good and beautiful. Jesus isn’t interested in confrontation just for confrontation’s sake. He isn’t about “getting it off our chest” by unloading on someone who has done us wrong. He’s about healing.

But, that kind of following of Jesus takes a great deal of courage, because it isn’t easy and it doesn’t come naturally to us. We’d rather avoid and evade. We’d rather ignore the infection and pretend it isn’t there. But, Jesus is all about healing. And that takes courage to step aside of pride, pain, unforgiveness, and whatever else holds us back, and to be people of courage.

Deep down, I think the person I was chatting with knew exactly what Jesus would have them do. I think more often than not we all know what Jesus would have us do. But it’s hard and messy, and so we hold back. We need courage and faith to trust that Jesus can do something amazing in the midst of even the most dysfunctional or painful circumstance, not willing to accept brokenness as ok.

I’m more convinced than ever that we are being called to courage.

Never ceases to amaze me how far two sets of expectations can be from each other, and how the big evaluation every 3 (or maybe 5) years is a pretty stupid way to go. This is one of the key reasons I am committed to a 90 Day Goal process for all of our staff, where we have regular, small conversations about progress and expectations, rather than irregular, monster conversations every year or few years.

This is a real challenge for us in ministry leadership. Connecting with people on the basis of the their felt needs, but navigating them gently towards exploring their real needs. To do this well and genuinely is the sign of great leadership and love.

Sometimes we get it right in authentic and insightful ministry. Sometimes it’s ugly and looks like bait and switch. It takes Spirit-led skill.

It’s kind of funny, really. We’ve been thinking about the possibility of cutting back our IT costs by exploring options like Gmail, but the decision all got made and implemented within a few days because we had a steep license bill coming up for one of the components in our Exchange setup which just seemed ridiculous for a sub-optimal solution. So, the crisis pushed us to jump and jump we have. I guess we’ll figure out soon enough whether this was a good move or not. In spite of some minor teething issues today, I think the transition was actually relatively painless.

Now, after Gmail’s rather poor past few weeks with some major downtime here and there, I’m hoping these sorts of things don’t become an issue for us. Although, having said that, our servers were all down a couple of weeks ago when the bad weather brought down the power in our area for several hours.

I continue to be quite amazed at the quality and excellence of tools put out by Google free-of-charge. Who would have imagined a decade ago that such a business model would work as well as it as for Google…