The latest update to the Allelon site has gone live. Alan Roxburgh has a very interesting interview with Tom Hughes of Fusion @ Christian Assembly Eagle Rock. In many ways, it deals with the question of whether large churches can be missional - CA is about 1,800 folk with over 500 a part of Fusion. And the interview would suggest they can. Tom is a leader in his early thirties - and he makes some very strong statements about those of us who have chosen to "love Jesus" outside the four walls of a church.
One of my favourite parts of the interview is the last section where Tom talks about their "Year of Discernment" process regarding new leaders. He tells two stories - one where the process reveals the ministry leadership skills of a young woman and the other that reveals a young man is not called to church-based ministry. It's good stuff. You can listen to it on the Allelon site or via iTunes. The iTunes version is in stereo, has graphics and weblinks. (And if you're wondering what my speaking voice sounds like, you'll find out by listening to either version of the podcast.)
I've also cut an eight minute video of Al talking about his recent trips to the UK and South Africa for the Allelon Mission in Western Culture project. This video outlines the work of the teams in these two areas and introduces us to Dr. Frederick Marais of Stellenbosch University, as well as Dr. Sara Savage of the Faculty of Divinity @ Cambridge. (Sara was featured recently in an audio Allelon Netcast with Alan.)
This update also features a relaunch of the Missional Journey blog with a great post from my Australian shopping buddy, Andrew Menzies. (Who is the person sitting to the left of Frederick in the MiWC video, oddly enough.)
The combination of working on this update, working on two large video projects for a long-term client, putting my back out - and still recovering from the Sundance cold-blessing, has seen my not blogging to the degree I'd like to. My schedule until the end of April is wonderfully crazy - so I'll continue to point you at interesting stuff as I find it - but won't necessarily be writing as many substantive posts as I'd would like to be.
