Dear friends,
Here’s an adaptation of my report to our last Board meeting:

1. COUNSELING of clergy, church leaders and spouses continues
(10-15 hours per week). Some stay in the loft.

2. WRITING: Sunrise Sunset (365 devotions, Harper Collins and
Harper San Francisco) is just out. I’m doing the final work on A
Garden of Solitude (5th and last in Still Waters Deep Waters
series). The Family (Harper Collins) is out: good reports so far.
Next: ‘The 100 Marks of a Healthy Church’ (probably
Albatross/Lion); ‘Help! (The 100 toughest questions I’ve ever
been asked’ (publisher to be negotiated…)

3. SEMINARING, PREACHING and CONSULTING: August-Feb: St. Mark’s
Anglican, Camberwell (Vic.), West Moreton Churches of Christ
Convention (Queensland), Balwyn Wesleyan Methodists (four
sessions), Emmanuel Christian School (Southport), Ballarat
Salvation Army, Hoppers’ Crossing Ministers’ Fellowship, Grace
Community Church Canberra, Collins St. Baptist Church, Melbourne
(two sessions on Spirituality and Sexuality), Ringwood Community
Church, Heathmont Baptist Church, South Barwon Salvation Army
(Geelong), Mooroolbark Anglican (Feast of St. Francis),
Promise-Keepers Conference (Brisbane), FGBMFI National Leaders’
Conference (Melbourne), Ridley College students’ spouses, Berwick
AOG, ANZATS (Theologians’ conference, Canberra), Northside AOG,
Queensland AOG’s, Conferences in India and possibly Estonia and
Hong Kong. A few confidential consultancies for various
churches/denominations are in progress. Holidays: January.

4. RESEARCH. We need someone to help track down ex-pastors to fill
in 250 more questionnaires. Philip Hughes has summarized findings
for the first 250 respondents for the following denominations:
Anglican, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Baptist, Uniting Church,
Churches of Christ. Letters have been sent to these denominations’
heads: about six have sent acknowledgements, no promises of $$$$
help to this point. Philip and I are presenting a paper to the
Anzats Conference on: ‘What Ex-Pastors thought of their seminary
training: some research findings and recommendations’.

5. EVANGELISM: I will easily reach one million people this year
via the Internet. Current research topic: Jesus and Modern
Scholarship (to be developed into a seminar for pastors’
conferences). Pray for a new newsgroup – ‘aus.religion.christian’.
My home page will contain up to 500 sermons/articles/book reviews.

6. FINANCES: counseling/seminaring pays for itself. But funds are
needed to cover research, holidays, study-time, car replacement,
secretarial, superannuation etc. And we’re about to ‘incorporate’.

7. READING: I have read/browsed all forty books submitted for
Australian Religious Book of the Year Award!

8. LIFE IS GOOD! Pray for us!