Month: March 2013

I am endlessly moved by this poem.Make no mistake: if He rose at allit was as His body;if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the moleculesreknit, the amino acids rekindle,the Church will fall. It was not as the flowers,each soft Spring recurrent;it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddledeyes of the eleven apostles;it [...]

We're now going to turn to the reason why the longing for small church, for the sake of intimacy, is a terrible and destructive ideal. Firstly, it doesn't understand the nature of church. The church is not a community seeking to create intimacy; it is a community intimately united to Christ, and only then to [...]

If you're Christian, or exploring Christianity, and you're about to move to the inner city, you should know about a bunch of great new church plants. White Horse Church, in Pyrmont.  Resolved Church, Newtown. Vine Church, Surry Hills. And, of course, the great transformational work happening at York St and St Stephens, Newtown. (As an [...]

Yesterday I wrote about what Sydney isn't. It's time I said something about what Sydney is. Or, at least, my part of Sydney, the inner, urban world. In my part of Sydney, locals are twice as likely to be university educated as the average Australian. But they are 15% more likely to be unemployed and and [...]

Over the next week or so, I'll be posting some reflections on what it is to be church in the city of Sydney. Day 1: Sydney is Sydney. Sydney isn't New York. The closest we come to the high-density urban burroughs of Manhattan and Queens is Surry Hills, which is predominantly middle-rise. The CBD is [...]