It’s all over (although my jet-lag isn’t quite yet)! We left the States on the 21st of October at around noon and arrived in Cape Town on the 23rd, around noon (local time). We’ve spent the weekend trying to get our internal clocks back on track.

The final week of the intensive went off well. We were all a little jaded and starting to think about getting home. It was quite sad to say goodbye to the other planters and their wives not knowing when we’ll ever see each other again. We had a send-off lunch with the RCPC staff and then each one went their separate way.

Our way took us to one more stop before the long trip home: St Louis, Missouri. I was in St Louis in February 08 visiting friends and the Journey Church which is one of the more influential churches in the Acts29 Network. On my previous visit I was really impressed with the Journey and the setup they had in St Louis so I really wanted Robin to see it and experience their community a little. So we spent 5 days catching up with friends and attending functions at the Journey. I had the chance to meet Darrin Patrick, the lead pastor, and spend some time getting to know him and talk about church planting both in the States and in South Africa. It was a worthwhile time of building relationships and getting further learning on the subject. We also had the chance to attend the Midwest regional Acts29 quarterly. By this time of our trip I was completely conferenced out and so I was expecting to doze off during most of the quarterly but they had Jeff Vanderstelt out from Soma Communities and he did 2 brilliant sessions that kept me wide awake.

So here’s my thoughts on the whole trip: God seems to be doing something huge through both the ministries of Redeemer Presbyterian and the Acts 29 Network - when you’re around these guys you really get the sense that something big is afoot in the world of church planting. And so in many ways Robin and I are completely humbled by the fact that we get to play a small part in this global movement. We were truly blessed by our time and I can confidently say that we were both affected and changed deeply by it. We come back to Cape Town with new eyes on a number of important issues. We’re also really grateful for the many friends we made along the way and are looking forward to building those relationships in the future.

I’d like to thank everyone, both at home and in the States, who helped make this trip possible. We are enormously thankful to God for all of you.

New York - Knoxville - New York. That’s been our movement over the weekend. On Friday morning at 3am we got up and flew out of Newark Airport to Knoxville, Tennessee. There we spent the weekend with folk from Cedar Springs Presbyterian. Most of the weekend was spent meeting people from the church and speaking at young adults meetings, Sunday morning and evening. On the Saturday we were treated to the experience that makes that city tick: A college football game at the 107 000 seater Neyland Stadium watching the Tennessee Volunteers (the ‘Vols’) take on the Georgia Bulldogs (the ‘Dawgs’). There were 103 000 people in attendance all dressed in orange going crazy over their team - it was something else.

We were hosted by the most wonderful South African family who are now based in Knoxville and we got a great chance to share the vision for a church planting movement in Cape Town with lots of the folk at the church, many of whom were encouraged by the potential opportunities there are in South Africa.

This morning we arrived back in New York - where someone has evidently turned the heat off (its seriously cold here now). We’ve got one more week of the intensive left and then we head out on Friday to visit the Journey Church in St Louis. Will keep you posted…

There are posts I wrote from which I think I’ve now shifted theologically, there are statements that I think I’ve shifted culturally away from and there are tones I took that I now think are inappropriate. So what do you do? Do I leave it up there as a kind of testimony to my journey as gospel minister? Do I strip down the blog so that I’m never incriminated for something I might not actually adhere to? Do I start over? Is this a significant question for future ministry? I’m not sure I know.

Two Sundays have come and gone since I last updated you (ya - sorry about that - things have been crazy busy). A lot has happened and this post will turn into an essay if I give you all the details so I’ll pick out the highlights of the last 12 days or so.

From the course point of view we’ve had some important discussions on very practical issues pertaining to church planting. We’ve covered fund raising (the politically correct term is: development), the strains church planting places upon marriages, drawing up church documentation, having difficult conversations with colleagues and thinking through contextualization, both for our preaching and for our styles of ministry. We had another Q & A session with Tim Keller - this time dealing with preaching. This session was hugely beneficial in hearing Tim’s approach both theologically and practically to his preaching. So they’ve kept us really busy - given us a ton of reading - but its all been great and really worth it.

Thursday evening last week was a benefit evening for the church planting center (I got all dressed up)- it was a chance for the center to showcase their work to important supporters. It was truly an inspiring evening to get a sense of the movement of church planting that is literally spreading across the major cities of the world through the help and influence of Redeemer. It’s a great privilege to be part of that movement.

We’ve visited three churches (besides Redeemer) in the last two weekends, Emmanuel Presbyterian, Apostles Church and Forefront Church. All three were plants that have been assisted by Redeemer, Emmanuel was a direct plant from Redeemer. Apostle’s Church is an Acts29 affiliated church and it was great to see what they are doing in the city. I got the chance to have lunch with JR Vassar, their pastor, and some of their elders to hear more about their work and for them to hear about what we’re doing in Cape Town.

From a sightseeing point of view we’ve hung out in China Town, been to a gig in the Village, been up the Rockefeller Center, had cupcakes with a South African diplomat to the United Nations, seen Grand Central Station and the library, eaten lots of Reese’s, drunk lots of Starbucks and had the odd double-quarter-pounder from McD’s.

Today is Wednesday, rest and reading day - I’ve also got a sermon to prepare and a few presentations to tweak. We’re off to Knoxville this weekend so we’ll keep you posted.

So, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday update…

Tuesday we listened to some of the intensive guys give presentations about their future plants and then we watched Tim Keller’s address at last year’s Dwell Conference, entitled ‘Dwelling in the Gospel‘. After that we had a bit of fun planning a philosophy of ministry for a simulated occasion and place - interesting getting church planters to work together in a team.

Wednesday was an off day to catch up on reading (and we had a lot) and to check out more of the city. So after some reading we headed out to the Central Park Zoo - saw a snow leopard for the first time.

Thursday we spent most of the morning having a Q&A session with Tim Keller on ‘Gospel Ministry’ - we decided beforehand, after our reading, which specific questions we wanted to ask. It was a fantastic experience to be able to just sit with him in a small intimate group and talk gospel ministry with him. As you’d expect his answers to our questions were soaked in biblical faithfulness, cultural sensitivity, pragmatic wisdom and serious humility. We were all very grateful for the privilege of that meeting - and we’re looking forward to having a few more before we leave.

More to follow…

I guess you can only appreciate Times Square (above) when you’re actually there. I think I’ve seen a hundred pictures or clips of the area but it’s quite something to see all the lit up advertising. So, yes, we were in Times Square this weekend, but let me back track a bit first…

On Friday we spent time hearing about some of the ministries at Redeemer, particularly their mercy ministry initiatives through Hope for New York and then also about their faith and work department at the church.

Their approach to mercy ministry was really fascinating. Basically they don’t run any mercy ministries directly out of the church but rather work, in partnership with a handful of other churches, to resource and provide volunteer help to the various affiliated faith-based organisations around the city. Definitely a concept  worth exploring in Cape Town. The faith and work department was something that really resonated with both Robin and I as its probably the area in which we’re weakest in the evangelical church in South Africa - at least as far as we’ve experienced. Redeemer is committed to demonstrating that the gospel makes a difference to work in this life, this side of heaven. And so they invest a lot in helping professionals work out what it means to use their work in a gospel-centered way (and, shock and horror, that means a whole lot more than trying to track-bomb evangelise your colleagues). We desperately need to learn from them in this area.

On Friday evening we headed up to Times Square and had supper at a little Brazillian restaurant to celebrate the birthday of one of our fellow intensive church planters. Saturday morning I watched Arsenal beat the stuffing out of Wigan (streamed on my laptop) and then we headed on the ferry to Staten Island - got to see the Statue of Liberty but not a whole lot else (there isn’t a ton of stuff happening on Staten Island). On the walk back from the ferry launch we walked through the financial district and saw Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange. We also saw the giant hole in the ground where the World Trade Center stood - they’re busy preparing to build a new tower there.

Sunday we attended two Redeemer services in the morning hearing Tim Keller and John Lin preach respectively. We then attended Trinity Grace Church in the evening and heard Jon Tyson (an exiled Aussie) preach.

Today we debriefed those three services and got to talk with Jon Tyson and John Lin about their stories and approaches to ministry and preaching.

Things are seriously pacing along - can’t believe we’ve been here for over two weeks already. But we’re doing great and enjoying it more and more. We miss all you Saffa’s - New York is amazing, but it still hasn’t got a patch on Cape Town!

This is some of what we presented at the church planting center last Tuesday morning. We made everyone here fall in love in Cape Town.

I think I’m going to lose some weight over the course of this trip with all the walking - none of the places we need to go to regularly are right next to a subway station, we always have to walk a few blocks so I’m getting plenty of exercise (although that huge calzone pizza I had at lunch today probably didn’t help).

So yesterday the wives slept in and us boys (me, Tobie and Endre) heading out to the intensive. We started the day by listening to Felipe Assis and the replanting work he has done in Miami, Florida - sounds like an interesting work being done by an interesting guy. Then we spent most of the day with Network Leadership Forum. So alongside the GCI conference some of the key leaders stayed over this week and attended a week long forum on developing and leading church planting networks and movements in major global cities. Some of you might know Shaun Storer - he was our rep for Johannesburg. So we sat in on their sessions for the rest of the day learning about network dynamics and the key types of people you need to have in place for sustainable networks.

This morning (Thursday) we had a slightly later start and spent a session on the factors involved in church planter’s call to church planting and then a session based on Paul Tripp and Timothy Lane’s book ‘How People Change‘. After that it was time to shop for food - which is a serious pain because you’ve got to walk a fair distance with heavy bags. Now I’m about to have supper with our apartment crew and Shaun so I’ll check in with you all later…

Ok, so these updates are not exactly daily - but there’s a lot going on that keeps us really busy so that’s my excuse. It’s Tuesday afternoon as I write this, I’m sitting in our apartment’s living room still enjoying the amazing view of Manhattan. We’ve been here for a week now and it’s still a bit surreal to wake up in the morning, get up to go make coffee, and see the Manhattan skyline stare you in the face across the Hudson - my guess is that it will still be surreal in 5 weeks time when we leave.

So what have we been up to? Let me back-track to last week. Wednesday through to Friday saw us attend the Global Cities Initiative Conference with 400 other leaders from around the world. Tim Keller spoke in the plenary sessions each morning about planting gospel-centered churches that start movements of renewal in global cities. There were lots of other breakout sessions in the afternoons about networking on a city-wide level and planting multiplying churches. Keller’s talks in the mornings were superb (we’d heard a lot of it before but he just seems to make it fresh and compelling each time he opens his mouth).

Slowly we’ve gotten to meet the rest of the church planters attending the Fall Intensive with us. Amongst us we represent the following countries:

Cape Town, South Africa

Pretoria, South Africa

Barcelona, Spain

Mexico City, Mexico

Seoul, South Korea

Monterrey, Mexico

Rome, Italy

Dublin, Ireland

London, England

Paris, France

Budapest, Hungary

We’re quite a diverse bunch but all committed to gospel-centered church planting in global cities. On Saturday we all met up at the Redeemer Church Planting Center’s offices which are on Broadway in the middle of Manhattan. We had an introductory lunch and got introduced to each other and the staff. On Sunday then we we’re required to attend two Redeemer services: One on the upper west side and one on the upper east side. It was a frantic rush to get to these two services and we only just made the sermon on each occasion where we heard Dave Bisgrove and Tim Keller preach respectively.

That evening we visited a church plant, Resurrection Presbyterian, in Brooklyn where we heard this really great young guy by the name of Vito Aiuto preach (one of the best sermons I’ve heard all year).

Monday morning saw the Fall Intensive classes start. We had sessions with Dave Bisgrove (one of the Redeemer pastors) and Vito Aiuto where we got to ask them questions about their churches and philosophies of ministry. Vito was super engaging and really gave us down to earth insight into the life of a new planter.

This morning I had to give a presentation about the church planting work we’re involved in back in Cape Town and we got hear about our flatmates (and now friends) Endre and Eneh’s work in Budapest, Hungary. After that Al Barth (who many of you know) took us through a session on the spiritual dynamics of gospel-renewal. We visited Columbia University this afternoon, and Union Theological Seminary in particular where we spent the afternoon with two of the Redeemer staff talking through the pastor’s devotional life. They day had a very devotional focus in general and I think we’re all feeling deeply grateful for the mercy shown us in Christ Jesus as we’ve explored it in depth today.

So yes, we’re fairly busy. We’re about to have supper with some of the planters (Robin is making curry). We’ll let you know more as we experience more. I’ll try to be more regular so that I don’t have to write such long posts in future. Hope you’re all well - we’re loving NYC but we still miss our beautiful Cape Town (and I think our presentation this morning made some of the guys wish they were planting in Cape Town!). Later…

That’s the night time view of downtown Manhattan from our Hoboken apartment. We’re here at last - it took us what seemed like an age but the view is definitely worth it! We left Cape Town at lunchtime on Sunday - flew to Jozi - spent 5 hours in the airport there (I like what they’ve done with OR Tambo, looks good) - flew to Zurich - spent 4 hours in the airport (without Swiss Francs or the budget to afford R70 coffees) - flew to JFK airport, New York - caught the metro to Manhattan (very interesting with two 20kg+ bags) - connected to the New Jersey underground, the PATH (still interesting with two 20kg+ bags and a serious lack of elevators at some stations) - and finally walked 3 blocks to our apartment (I have callouses on my hands from those bags). But our apartment was worth it (and we saved $80 in taxi fare).

Well the apartment was almost worth it. We were so overcome with the view that we failed to notice that instead of having 3 beds and 1 crib for 6 adults and 1 baby we had 2 beds and 3 cribs (I tried to fit in the crib but to no avail). This situation is only going to get sorted out on Thursday so Robin and I are on the sleeper couch in the lounge till then - at least we still have the best view.

Like I said there are 6 of us in the apartment. Tobie and Marianna (who many of you will know) are with us along with their little daughter Amelie. They’re church planters north of the real boerewors curtain in Pretoria. We also have Endre and Eneh staying with us. They’re a couple church planting in Budapest, Hungary. Tomorrow we’ll meet the rest of the group.

It’s up early tomorrow morning to head to the Global Cities Initiative which is a conference running for the next 3 days hosted by Redeemer. We’ll fill you in on the details as things happen. Later…