Tomorrow, what may prove to be a significant event for Sydney Anglicans begins in Seattle, USA.
Between March 9 and 10, some 900 church planters from around the world - including Sydney - will be gathering in Seattle for a boot camp with the Acts 29 Church Planting Network and the World Church Planting Summit.
Its seems fairly apparent that Sydney will continue to experience waves from Driscoll’s tsunami-like visit last year.
As Mark Driscoll’s invite puts it: “Mars Hill and Acts 29 are going global. We are deadly serious about the great commission and loading all guns to storm hell with the gospel of grace. And we need more men. Nine hundred men. Not boys"”men. Real men.”
Amongst the handful of Australians handpicked by Driscoll to attend will be Steve Chong, pastor of the Kirkplace Presbyterian church plant at Kogarah, who may be better known to readers through his work with the RICE network, and Andrew Heard from Central Coast Evangelical Church.
Representing us Anglicans will be Wollongong bishop, Al Stewart.
Thoughts on the big Driscoll question
There seems little doubt Driscoll will be returning to Sydney. And his Acts 29 church plants will be starting here in some form.
The big question for us is: do we get on board or start our own thing? Do we, as Driscoll puts it, ‘clump’ with him?
Intrigued by all this I recently watched Mark Driscoll’s talk “We are a movement” from a recent Acts 29 Bootcamp.
So what do I make of this?
The video is very impressive. Driscoll is inspiring and very insightful. (And remarkably generous to others. A model for us Sydney Anglicans.)
Although you don’t often think of Driscoll of being like this, I was especially struck by the balance of Driscoll’s understanding of the Acts 29 Movement. He distinguishes the key matters which we must all agree on and secondary matters where he allows remarkable freedom (even though he has strong views on them).
“Humility, listen, discernment,” he says.
Although in some regards I find him theologically thin (and there are some things I definitely don’t agree with him about), he is still a remarkable Christian leader with deep wisdom.
