MattGlover.com

I’m currently wagging one of the School of Ministry electives.

Not that the choices are bad this afternoon, but simply because my introvert scale is shot to pieces and if I have to talk to anybody else I’m likely to kill them.

SoM is an annual conference/networking thing put on by Whitley College in Melbourne for pastors and ministry leaders of Baptist Churches in Victoria. It’s usually pretty good in terms of catching up with some fellow travellers in ministry, hearing some good teaching, and then debating how what we’ve heard shakes down in the reality of life.

This year the guest speaker is Mike Frost. Being a former Forge intern, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard ‘Frosty’ speak now. But as usual, I’ved loved to watch a master communicator at work. His story telling ability is probably the best I’ve seen/heard and his passion for mission is undeniable.

In the past, I’ve argued against some of what he has said. I’ve heard him tear strips off the institutional church and any church that owns property. I’ve heard him say there is no point in continuing how we do church and we should simply give up and start again. I’ve heard him say that most pastors have issed the point entirely when it comes to the call of Jesus.

I disagree with all of those things in one way or another. Being one of the first ‘insitutional’ church pastors to be a Forge intern with a view to continuing being an ‘instituional’ church pastor, I found I had a few heated discussions with some of the other interns about al sorts of thing. I dn’t think many of them took me that serriously.

(For the record, I don’t think my church can be called insitutional. It’s part of the free church tradition that has held dear for centuries many of the things the emerging church movement is saying we should ‘rediscover’. But that’s a post for another day.)

Anyway, I was interested to hear what Mike Frost would have to say in a gathering of pastors and whether he would tone down his message at all.

I’m glad to say that he didn’t hold back at all, but delivered his message with his usual fire and passion…BUT…the content was quite different. This time I saw Mike Frost the pastor sharing some of his own story. He spoke of some of the fears we all must face in ministry if we are to be faithful to the call Jesus has placed before us. It was like Mike had the chance to reflect on numerous things since my time at Forge, and while not changing his message, he had come to realise that ‘reality’ sometimes means that being ‘radical’ must look ordinary at times.

Anyway, there’s still one session to go for the day, so I better come out from my hiding spot an re-engage.