It’s kind of hard to express the things I felt as I read Jason Janz’ article yesterday morning announcing that he is moving on and passing the leadership of SI to Aaron Blumer. Though I don’t know Jason personally, I do feel a sense of comraderie with him because of the similarity of what he has done to what we are doing here at GMT and InFocus. The other thing I felt was a profound sense of gratefulness. There are three key reasons why I’m grateful for what Jason has done over the last three years.

First, I’m grateful that Jason had the courage to launch and build Sharper Iron when he knew it would be controversial and misunderstood. I’m thankful that Jason didn’t let the critics, the trolls, those with an agenda… he didn’t let them stop him or side track him. He pioneered a model for fundamentalist interaction on the web that is wise, courageous, edifying.

Second, I’m grateful that Jason opened up so many important topics for discussion within Fundamentalism. The day when open, honest Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll admit it’s not my title, but it sure is a good title. It’s actually Abraham Piper’s title and he wrote the article which you can read here. And I encourage you to do so, but if you can’t, I’ll give a very brief summary because this is something that I’m pretty passionate about.

I think Australian pastors need to blog. I understand that not every pastor can or should blog. I understand that there are certain weaknesses to the medium and certain dangers to be avoided. And I understand that the younger generation of pastors is more likely to blog than the older generation. Still, I think Australian pastors need to blog. Here are a few of my reasons and then I’ll give you six of Abraham’s reasons.

First, I believe Australian pastors need to blog because blogging creates a spirit of accountability and transparency that Fundamentalism tends to lack. The blogosphere is a level playing field of sorts where ideas naturally carry more weight than personalities.

Second, I believe Australian pastors need to blog because blogging would allow for dialogue within the Australian movement. We’re all in this together Read the rest of this entry »

By Steven Mock

The first church in Jerusalem was formed in Acts 2 when Peter preached a powerful, Spirit-filled, convicting message. God used Peter’s words to convert 3,000 people who were baptized and started meeting together. Verse 42 tells us they had four priorities as a local church: the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the Lord’s Supper, and praying.

All four of these priorities are important but the apostles’ teaching is probably mentioned first because it was the greatest of priorities. In other words, the local church must be a learning church. The Scriptures must be foundational in your church because according to 1 Timothy 3:15, truth must be pillared and protected by the church.

This leads me to discuss a problem that seems to be a modern day phenomenon in the church at large: distance preaching. I’m not talking about sitting in the back of your church building versus sitting towards the front—not that kind of distance. I am talking about the fact that we live in a day where you can listen to a variety of sermons from all around the world in a variety of media: tapes, CD’s, radio, TV, and internet—that is Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes I log on for fun. Sometimes I log on just because I’m in the mood. Sometimes I log on because I need encouragement. Sometimes I log on because I’m eager to reap from the vast and endless wisdom that flows from the minds of our many posters. But whatever is happening on the surface, there’s always an underlying reason why I log on to givemetruth.net.  Read the rest of this entry »

The article following (in the next post) was originally published on InFocus (back when it was called the “Fundamentalist Resource Centre”) back in July 2005. It’s been a while, but I think it still applies today.

These are exciting days to be a Fundamentalist in Australia. God is doing amazing things in churches across the nation. We’re seeing a whole generation of pastors get older (no offence guys!) and move into more of a mentoring role. This is an opportunity the last generation didn’t often get. These types of men provide stability and depth to the movement and I’m thankful for them.

Back when GMT began (over three years ago), we couldn’t have dreamed what God would do through the ministry. Today, GMT has over 550 members and plays Read the rest of this entry »

Atmosphere could be defined as the weather or climate at some place. So is it even logical to refer to “the Australian atmosphere”? After all, the Australian atmosphere today may be the Indonesian atmosphere tomorrow. Just as the idea of a line between Australia’s atmosphere and Indonesia’s is a slightly hazy concept, so there are no clear delineations between Australia’s blogosphere and that of the rest of the world. Still, there is enough distinction to make it worth talking about and definitely enough to make it worth developing.

In the last week, we’ve seen the blogosphere abuzz with the Sword of the Lord editor’s comments on blogging (see here). It’s not my intent to comment on that here, but the point I do want to emphasise is that Read the rest of this entry »

Givemetruth.net is a Fundamentalist forum community. The membership is mostly young people in Australia. This article is posted here primarily for our forum membership, but may also be of some benefit to others. Ed.

Givemetruth.net and the Future of Australia
By Jason Harris

I believe the environment at Givemetruth.net is at it’s healthiest level ever. Some may not understand what I mean when I say that, so I want to take a moment to explain my heart and vision for Givemetruth.net and to ask you the reader to get on board with what God is doing here.

Where Are We Going?

In just over a year of existence, Givemetruth.net has become a major influence among the young people of our movement. Givemetruth.net has never sought to replace the church as God’s plan for spiritual discipleship, but it has sought to support the ministry of the church by networking the future of our movement in spiritual interaction and godly relationships.

If you want to know where GMT is going, you need to understand our purpose statement:

Read the rest of this entry »

By Jason Harris

Virtual reality implies artificial, but the cyber-phenomenon that dominates today’s generation is anything but artificial. The rise of interactive web-based services such as MSN chat, forum communities, and blogs has led to a culture in which one’s identity is assumed at login and we can hang out with friends online just as easily as at the mall (granted the coffee’s better at the mall!). Read the rest of this entry »