Most ministers fear not being creative enough when it comes to taking the Gospel to our city. My response is that we don't all need to be innovators. But we must watch, critique and improve upon what others are doing for our own situation. Often new ministries commence by us being reflective "bower birds"; collecting and using the work of others.

Over the last few weeks I have had the privilege of reading 4th year Moore College students’ examination of our culture, and their investigations into how we might use modern cultural trends to proclaim Christ. I thought I'd share some of them with you. My intention is not necessarily that you will do these things. I just hope to stimulate you to think about the wide variety of things that might be done…

"¢ Comic books: Reading comics and graphic novels is a big with teens and widespread amongst a significant minority of Australia. Can we tap into this market with gospel content?

"¢ Coffee cart: Sipping good coffee is the recreation of our generation. Top coffee, good baristas selling coffee where people congregate, accompanied by good open air drama and proclamation that the coffee drinkers want to watch.

"¢ After-school tutors: We live in an age where tutoring is common, operating from primary school to the end of high school. Set up tutoring colleges with congregation members so that we can make contact with the younger people of our community. (I also wonder whether we can teach languages to second generation migrants, whose parents are perhaps concerned their children will lose the home tongue?)

"¢ Personal trainers: Like after school tutors they are in high demand. Can we build relationships and gospel opportunities through this means?

"¢ Swimming lessons / voice correction: Some groups in our society, especially some ethnic groups are poor swimmers and would love a program to teach swimming, followed perhaps by dinner and gospel conversations. Similarly there are some groups who recognise that to function well in Australia some voice correction would help.

"¢ Grey nomad missionaries: Churches could train retirees in evangelism then adopt couples who are caravanning around Australia. Apparently there are great relational and gospel opportunities in caravan parks.

"¢ Book clubs: This is an ever growing activity in Australia. Perhaps Christians should initiate these clubs and offer a Christian perspective on what is being read.

"¢ On-line mission: Second Life is a virtual reality existence which many enjoy as a past-time. Maybe we can do virtual evangelism and set up a virtual church plant?

The list goes on and on. There are at least two significant problems we must face as we think this through:

1. Every activity costs people time And starting a new ministry will detracts from time spent doing other things, such as church and family. We must weigh up with each other the best use of time, and gifts the Lord has given us, while recognising that not changing anything is the default position - one which we must avoid.
2. Doing things can easily be an alternative to proclaiming Christ Not everyone is the gifted extrovert-evangelist, but every Christian has their own story to tell of the magnificent grace of God. Any activity we undertake should have as its outcome the enhance, not diminish, these story-telling opportunities.