In his book, God Space, Doug Pollock starts with a story of Paul and Lisa, a newly married couple who had just become Christians. They were so excited about their faith in Jesus and how it had changed their lives that they longed to share the gospel with their unsaved families. After much prayer they decided that the Christmas family reunion would be the perfect time. After casually chatting and catching up Karen, Lisa’s younger sister, shared how she was on a spiritual high after an angel had appeared to her in a dream. This was there chance. Before Karen could...

One of the biggest reasons people don’t want to share their faith is the belief that only people with the spiritual gift of evangelism are called to do that. I’ve heard it many times, “I don’t have the gift of evangelism!” Or “Do you really expect everyone in your church to be willing and able to share their faith?” And the answer is “Yes!” So why do I believe everyone who follows Jesus should be able to explain why? Firstly, while the vast majority of Christians don’t have the spiritual gift of evangelism they are all called to let their lights...

One day, while diving for crayfish off the east coast of Tasmania as a young man, I was invited on-board a professional cray boat. It was a big boat, designed to spend weeks off-shore setting and checking cray pots. I found it fascinating. It had narrow stairs that descended below decks that were so step they were almost ladders. It had a huge hold filled with sea water that had room for thousands of crayfish. The bridge was filled with levers and dials and buttons. It certainly wasn’t a pretty boat, it was weather beaten, it was utilitarian, it was built...

You can tell a plant is healthy because it grows. You plant a seed in the ground, and it sends forth a shoot, and the shoot produces leaves, it gets bigger and stronger, and in time it produces fruit and reproduces itself. Jesus talks about this sort of growth in terms of people’s spiritual journey. He says, ‘As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty. (Mt 13:23 ESV)’ Healthy Christians produce fruit....

In response to Classis Western Australia’s overture to appoint a Church Outreach Taskforce (Overture 3), Synod instead decided to appoint a person to the GROW workgroup to advance local church outreach, and to adopt the following mandate for that person: In understanding Task 2 of the Four Fold Task ‘To grow healthy churches which nurture and equip their members and, by God’s grace, expand numerically, become the mother-churches of as many fellowships and congregations as possible, and take further initiatives to penetrate structures of society with the gospel,’ and in the awareness that evangelism and outreach are core responsibilities of the...