I received an email this morning letting me know that Robert Webber had passed away Friday at 6:10 PM (Eastern time) in his wife, Joanne's arms, after his 8 month battle with pancreatic cancer.

I enjoyed reading his Ancient Future books and he will be sadly missed by the Christian community at large. He was a great writer having written..

Ancient-Future Time (Baker)

Ancient-Future Evangelism: Making Your Church a Faith-Forming Community-How can evangelism produce not only converts but also disciples who grow in faith and become active members of the church? (Baker, 2003)

The Younger Evangelicals: Facing the Challenges of the New World (Baker, 2002)

Journey to Jesus: The Worship, Evangelism, and Nurture of the Church (Abingdon Press, 2001)

Ancient-Future Faith: Rethinking Evangelicalism for a Postmodern World-Current concerns focus on how worship and spirituality bring vitality to the church in postmodern culture (Baker, 1999)

Christine Sine just sent me some material she has put together some Lenten material for Mustard Seed Associates (MSA). It can be downloaded from www.msainfo.org

She will also be doing some short worship videos to go with the material that can be viewed on her blog. Christine plans to add one each week of Lent & through to Easter.

So take a look.

I am putting the final pieces together to begin selling the Church Video Licence here in Australia & New Zealand. It will allow church to have an umberella copyright licence to allow the viewing of movies for non-commercial purposes.

I have also been working on the website so stay tuned. I will post the new URL soon.

UPDATE: The licence starts at $110 AUD. If you contact CCLI's Australian office (02) 9894 5386 or New Zealand (09) 522 4494, they can set you up.

The heart of the message of the Gospel is that no matter what station in life we come from, ie. whether rich or poor, slave or free, have an education or not, no matter what race, or colour, we can all enter the Kingdom of God.

I have recently come to realise that while this may be true, there is a strong class system that exists within the Church and it is predominately middle class. The wealthy don't need it and the poor are not accepted in it. (I know this is a generalisation)

Jesus said very clearly that he came to help the poor, the broken, the hurting and those with mental illness, but are these the people that fill our Churches. A good friend while speaking at a conference boldly and honestly said, he found being around the poor and broken was "uncomfortable" he didn't like it. But he was also very aware that the heart of God was love for the poor.

So he continued to help and love the those who were in need. I even realised that in my attitude toward serving the poor was conditional - I had the expectation they would become "like me" middle class. How sick that is....

My attitude has changed a lot, not yet like Christ but certainly has changed in the right direction. Yet I fear that there are many who are crying out for help but but the help that, IF given, is conditional.

I am interested in knowing your experience with serving the poor, the broken, the hurting and those with mental illness. Are they an integral part of the community? or do they exist on the fringe? or is your church predominately middle class?

Waking the Dead: The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive. The very first paragraph I laid eyes on was....

God is calling together little communities of the heart, to fight for one another and for the hearts of those who have not yet been set free. The camaraderie, the intimacy, that incredible impact by a few stouthearted souls--that is available. It is the Christian life as Jesus gave it to us. It is completely normal.

I like this!!!!

From Brokenness to Community (The Wit Lectures) by Jean Vanier. It is an easy read but much harder to digest. He gentley confronts the reader.

"It is my belief that in our mad world where there is so much pain, rivalry, hatred, violence, inequality and oppression, it is people who are weak, rejected, marginalized, counted as useless, who can become a source of life and of salvation for us as individuals as well as for our world" Jean Vanier

I remember listening to Dallas one afternoon in Eagle, ID talking on the nature of the Kingdom. A nice reminder from the day was....

"It is not the Church that advances the Kingdom, it is the Kingdom that advances the Church."

I just saw the title of an article that said Prayer Still Works and I was immediately puzzled. Prayer is our means of talking with God not our tool to get him to do what we want.

It is kind of like saying talking with my wife enables me to get her to do what I want, rather than, I want to talk with my wife because I love her.

I have been doing a lot of thinking this week about the very nature of holiness, and why it doesn't seem there is a desire for it in the circles I mix in. I am not talking about religious piety but an attitude of the heart that is reflected in how I live.

This week it hit me like a slap in the head, Be Holy for I the Lord God and Holy. God spoke very clearly to the People of Israel and told them to consecrate themselves.

Am I different to the people of Israel? Is it an option or is it connected with spiritual maturity. I don't feel particularly Holy right now but I have a growing desire to live a life that is Holy and consecrated to God.

It's been encouraging to see SeedStories taking shape and more and more people signing up to the discussion. Mark Juane from the Philippines has just joined the team and he will add more of a global perspective on Church Planting.

I've been able to get an early look at Alan's new book, The Sky is Falling - Leaders Lost in Transition. A Proposal for Leadership Communities Recovering Fresh Imagination to Take New Risks for the Reign of God.

It is looking like another great book from Alan. Here is what Tim Keel wrote.

"This is more than a book, it is a manifesto, a proposal for a new way of imagining a common life together as the pilgrim people of God seeking to fulfill God's purposes for the world in our time. Roxburgh's call for a new kind of space that is simultaneously occupied by those in traditional church organizations ("liminals") and by those who are out exploring new ways of believing and belonging ("emergents") is desperately needed. Moreover his exploration of new modes and metaphors for leadership and organizational structures goes a long way in helping fund our collective imagination so that we might respond to the opportunities and challenges we are presented with in fresh and dynamic ways."

- Tim Keel, Founding Pastor, Jacob's Well Church, Kansas City, MO.

It is due for release at the end of January 2006