Steve Carlisle - 28 August 2008 02:02 PM

I already have one year 12 bloke bashing my door down to be a church planter, not a bad thing!

Hi Steve,

Indeed what a night it was for planting ‘seeds’ for the future ! Thanks for sharing that spontaneous outburst of enthusiasm from that young bloke - most encouraging !

Cheers, Kevin

I’ve had a couple of people share their revived enthusiasm for church planting with me, as well

Steve Carlisle - 28 August 2008 02:02 PM

I thought it was good also.

I heard from some that the talk was not ‘expositional’ enough, and that the Revelation passage was not touched.

I thought that the talk wasn’t ‘expositional’ enough neither; however from most of the talks I have heard by Mark, his forte is quite strong on the Systematic side (which isn’t a bad thing). I suspect most of us are just used to the expositional style preaching that comes with being a Sydney Anglican (which is also not a bad thing!).

The passage read was nevertheless highly relevant in relation to burning the plastic world views of Jesus. I suspect Pastor Mark had another 1 hours worth of sermon in him last night to expound the true/real Jesus…
The one who, has written on his robe and tattooed on his thigh, KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

I was rather keen on him shouting at us some more about that aspect of Jesus.

I thought some people might be put off that it wasn’t an expositional Bible Talk. He basically told funny stories (with some sting) for about the first 3/4, then spent the last 1/4 explaining the gospel with reference to some proof texts.

This is pretty much what Chappo did in his evangelistic talks, back in the day…

Steve Carlisle - 28 August 2008 02:02 PM

I heard from some that the talk was not ‘expositional’ enough, and that the Revelation passage was not touched.

I didn’t really go there expecting your typical expositional, KCC sermon, and wasn’t too fussed that the Revelation passage wasn’t touched on. Either way, having listened to plenty of his talks revolving around Bible books and his thematic/doctrine talks, he is faithful to Scriptural truths in both regards. For the uninitiated and unchurched it may have required a little bit of stamina, but I found myself engaged throughout, not just because of the wacky Photoshop jobs (anyone who wasn’t able to go should really buy the DVD or get your church to buy one), but because of the manner in which he used these misconceptions to ultimately point to the truth of Jesus. The section after the questions was bold, unashamed, and, most importantly, “true story”.

Yeah no issue with me either.

Honesty, I believe that expositional preaching is helpful, and dare I say it, safer for dud preachers like me to make sure they dont make mistakes. Stay close to the text, and you cant go wrong.

As for ‘do you have to do it that way?’ surely not! Especially at an evangelistic event.

Anyway, I dont want to highjack the thread with talks of sermon styles. The night was excellent, helpful, and people became believers, others strengthened and encouraged, what more could you want?

Oh, and I had a Dixon House feed!

Chris Spark from Neutral Bay was on drums…

My three cents worth…

1. The other vocal/guitar guy up front with Matt Roberts was Murray Bunton. Tim Escott was on bass.

2. I was astounded at how much Mark Driscoll had absorbed of our culture. He obviously had come to Sydney with eyes open and his mind ready for analysis. Just think of the myriad of cultural observations he made:

budgie smugglers;
tall poppy syndrome;
the multitude of football codes in our country (although he’s still to the learn the difference between a springbok and wallaby jersey!);
high levels of smoking;
Colin (Collette) the whale;
‘mateship’ culture among young men;
the ‘relaxed’ culture up on the central coast;
Sydney’s multiculturalism;
even Kevin Rudd’s interest in Bonheoffer!!!

(That last one was particularly impressive. How the heck to you pick that up in 3.5 weeks? It’s not something you can observe just by walking down the street.)

And to these we can add the numerous references to statistical data collected from the 2001 census and other sources.

The effect of such hard work on Mark’s behalf is at least two-fold…

First of all it enables the gospel to hit a more accurate target. It enabled him to dismantle what we might take as natural assumptions and then show how the gospel supersedes them.

Secondly, and perhaps more profoundly, IT MADE US FEEL LOVED. This guy has paid a lot of attention to us, taking the time to understand us and notice our own particular habits/characteristics etc. So at the end when he said “I love you guys”, it was hard for us to be cynical! Yep, he really does, look at the time and attention he gave us.

3. As for the preaching style, I did notice that “the Bible I am going to preach from” remained closed for most of the time he was on the platform, but anyone with any knowledge of his preaching habits at Mars Hill Church will know how much Mark Driscoll values expository preaching. I would be interested to know his philosophy going into last night’s event. Why did he choose that particular style? It brings up another question of the relationship between theology and gospel and scripture: and how they all interact at anyone time etc etc. I for one found it helpful to have my assumptions on that matter challenged.

Thanks Pastor Mark!

Alwin Chin - 28 August 2008 02:20 PM

I thought that the talk wasn’t ‘expositional’ enough neither; however from most of the talks I have heard by Mark, his forte is quite strong on the Systematic side (which isn’t a bad thing). I suspect most of us are just used to the expositional style preaching that comes with being a Sydney Anglican (which is also not a bad thing!).

His sermon was topical, which for the event was appropriate (90% of his sermons at his church are pure expositional..book-by-book, verse-by-verse).

He probably could have more explicitly tied the Revelation passage into what he said.

Interesting he stated he was using the “bible his wife gave him”...this is an NIV but he has transitioned to ESV for preaching (you can tell I know way too much about him).

Does anyone know if the CD and DVD will be on sale this weekend at the Engage conference? It would be a smart marketing move, and from what I’ve heard about last night from people who were there, it would be a worthwhile purchase.
Btw, is anyone else from here going to Katoomba?

I’m game.
What’s a Dixon house feed?

Did anyone else get the sense that Mark plans for a church plant in Sydney?

David McKay - 28 August 2008 04:16 PM

I’m game.
What’s a Dixon house feed?

A restaurant in Chinatown, so it seems:

http://www.sydneyeats.net.au/far_-_frontitia3?cid=12219&pid=2149724

Steve, knowing you as well as I do, I’d be not surprised if you tried the salmon fish head soup...:P

While budgie smugglers and the shooting of Colin were on the money for reading Australian culture, Billy Graham was at Randwick in 1979. I don’t think the Entertainment Centre was even built?
Don’t want to sound too pedantic. It was a fantastic night. Wish I had a dollar for every time he mentioned Jesus!

Hi,

In the interests of hopefully helpful criticism…

I thought the section on Country Jesus as one of the plastic Jesus‘s was rather weak.

It seems to me this may have been one unsuccessful attempt to transplant an American framework here, with the claim that more people are involved in church in country areas.

I doubt that most Sydneysiders have any idea of or any interest in what happens with churches in the country.

In fact from Profiling Australians(2003):

Reported church attendance among people in urban and rural areas is similar, with 20% of urban dwellers attending frequently compared with 19% of rural dwellers.

Source: http://www.ncls.org.au/default.aspx?sitemapid=2294

Unfortunately, Mark D.’s premise in this section of the talk was wrong.

Perhaps Mark would have been closer to the mark [no pun intended initially] in our context to talk about Suburban Jesus, who is probably a close relative of the Moral Jesus he spoke of.

Grace & peace,
Terry

[Footnotes:
+ That data reported in 2003 was from surveys in earlier years - there should be more current data from NCLS 2006 available in the future.
+ That data was based on a self-reporting approach not a census approach so percentages tend to be higher.
+ Farmers and agricultural workers, who are a minority even in rural areas, did report higher attendance, which means other rural people were even lower.]