.:: exagorazo ::.

Justice Friday

2009-05-05T23:03:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago I started Justice Friday on Twitter. What is it? It is a day that different people "tweet" about, blog about, facebook about, and generally raise awareness for all sorts of justice issues. From human trafficking to malaria, all sorts of justice issues are raised, with the end goal of generating awareness and action. The point is not just to share statistics, the point is to help other people understand the great justice issues of our day, and how they can respond and act to bring justice.

You can get involved in a couple of ways:

Follow the action by searching the hashtag #justicefriday on Twitter - read the tweets. (Here's how hashtags work...) Follow me on Twitter here
Tweet and retweet stats, info, and facts about your favorite justice issues. Do you have a favorite organization like the IJM or Not For Sale or Compassion? Follow them on Twitter and retweet their info for the rest of us! There are lots of ways to get involved. Remember to use the #justicefriday hashtag.

He has showed you, O man, what is good.

And what does the LORD require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

and to walk humbly with your God.

- Micah 6:8

Is Twitter narcissitic? A response...

2009-04-23T09:03:00.003-05:00

Recently, Justin Taylor posted these excerpts from a blog about the inherent narcissism of Twitter. I did not feel that this article really gave a gospel-centered approach to the phenomenon that is Twitter (and other forms of social media), so here is my best attempt at a gospel-centered response:

I find it ironic that he blogged about his Twitter angst. You know it wasn’t long ago that blogging was considered the “telegraph of Narcissus,” etc, etc. Blogging also wraps itself and its users in an infantile language… bloggers blogging on blogs. In fact, any communication medium worth being called a communication medium creates its own language – that’s the whole point of having a communication medium – newspapers, television, preaching, cell phones, email, papyrus scrolls – all inherently create and profligate a new language. Not surprising is the fact that he is, by his very admission, using the wood from his own rickety bridge that he’s standing on…to build a fire. (But that is what post-moderns are good at - castigating and eviscerating the very language their rants are written with…)

And I disagree that the community is merely symbolic. For him it may be, but for me, at least, it is not. Case in point… I run into a guy at one of our gatherings… he’s a group leader… we’ve never met before in person before that day, but we’d exchanged “tweets” and I’d been following his Twitter stream. Interesting thing happened… I asked him about his family (the family he “tweeted” about) and his family outing the week before (that he had “tweeted” about)… In a matter of a few moments we were able to go from “small talk” to “big talk” because of a history of relationship (however thin and surfacy – but, then again, isn’t that what all “small talk” really is…). (A wise mentor told me a long time ago that you have to go from “small talk” to “big talk”…)

I can’t tell you how many times that scenario has happened in ministry with me… these are real people that I’m able to connect with and love and pray for and listen to and keep up with because of, yes, Twitter. My friend had to take his newborn to the doctor… how did I find out and why did I pray? You got it – Twitter. And not to mention the countless births, hospital visits, chemistry tests, birthday parties, etc., etc.

I would not say that the “great paradox of ‘social networking’ is that it uses narcissism as the glue for "community." I would say that the great paradox of human communication and existence is that it uses narcissism as the glue for community… The problem is not Twitter, the problem is the human heart. The problem is not money. The problem is the human heart. The problem is not sex. The problem is the human heart.

So I won’t spend any more time or energy exegeting Nicholas Carr’s myopic view of Web 2.0… Is it narcissistic? Yes… But isn’t all communication inherently narcissistic, unless redeemed by the gospel? Aren’t there 4 things we as Christians know about everything in the world? 1. It was created by God, 2. because of the Fall it’s been broken/ganked/abused/narcissistic because of sin, 3. it can be redeemed, and 4. it will ultimately be renewed. (Creation – Fall – Redemption – Renewal… the plot-line of the Bible, and the bedrock of a gospel worldview...)

I think that our gospel worldview is big enough to handle Twitter… but I don’t expect his to be.

Q&A (via Twitter) about Church Planting

2009-01-19T19:58:00.005-06:00

So I was on my way to lunch with John Herrington, the church planting director for HCBC. John's a great guy and full of wisdom, insight and practical how-to's on church planting. He's the kind of guy you just wanted to glean from over and over again. So on the way to the lunch I Twittered about going to lunch with John and asked anyone to chime in with their own questions for him.

(By the way - John is doing 2 workshops at our upcoming Leadership Conference.)

Here are the questions I got and the responses from John:

From Jonathan McIntosh: (Alec asked a similar question over Facebook...)

Question: "What are the Top 5 qualities of a church planter - assuming elder qualifications?"

John's answer:

1. Love lost people: I mean, LOVE lost people. If you're gonna start a church and you don't like lost people - you've missed the point.

2. Ability to gather people: you've got to have the ability to gather a missional core who will do this WITH you and do that in a way that's "sticky" too, where people stay with you.

3. Teambuilder: church planters think they need to do it all, but they need to be able to build a team that can help them.

4. Spousal participation: your wife is your partner - you don't work for IBM - WE are church planters doing this together. Great and growing marriage is a must. If I see your marriage is struggling with deep issues - you're out - no matter what your talent.

5. Capacity to meaningfully exegete your community: despite our best efforts, most planters are worlds apart from the worldview and way of thinking of the lost... different language... you might as well be speaking Chinese to a Russian. It's that drastic. Go to Kazakstan - can you read the signs? No! Neither can you understand the lost until you learn their language and worldview - it's the same principle.

From Jacob Vanhorn:

Question: "How have the challenges of a full blown residency changed your vision or strategy from its inception?

John's Answer:

Having 5 guys in a church planting Residency means that I have to think 5 different ways. The tendency has been to franchise and systematize everything and that just won't work. Everything in me wants to tell them what to do, but they are all different guys with different models. HCBC was originally very model-specific for a suburban strategy. However, it took 18 years to plant 5 churches. They made the paradigm shift to missional church planting and have planted 15 church in 3 years.

You can keep up with my Twitter updates here.

image: Anthropomorphic Roots by: delgaudm

Top 6 Reasons I haven't blogged in 6 months

2008-12-21T16:14:00.004-06:00

1. Karis. My last blog post was June 18th. Our 2nd daughter (and 3rd child in less than 4 years), Karis, was born on June 23rd. You do the math. Although Kimberly, my wonderful wife, had made the transition to 2 kids, now that she was consumed with Karis, it was now my turn to learn what it's like to have to take care of 2 children under the age of 4.

2. For the City - our Fall Vision Series at The Austin Stone Community Church. On top of launching over 300 missional communities, we raised close to $11 million to build, among other things, a non-profit center in the poorest neighborhood in Austin.

3. Designed, launched, facilitated and taught, with the help of Allen and Joey, Project 297, a pilot training platform for urban missionaries, global missionaries, and church planters. We currently have 27 guinea pigs... ahhh, I mean, participants.

4. Hired 4 new staff - 2 church planting residents, a church planting intern and a ministry assistant.

5. Discovered Twitter. You can follow me at http://twitter.com/_Stew_

6. Got an iPhone. Whatever you think is next level, the iPhone is 5 levels above that. Trust me.

image: writer's block by: thorinside

Missional Blog-fest

2008-06-18T15:11:00.003-05:00

Let's face it - the word "missional" has become a junk-drawer word. You know what a junk-drawer is - that drawer in your bedroom or desk that just gets all sorts of crap thrown in it. G.K. Chesterton once said something to the effect that if you don't believe in anything, then you'll believe everything. The reverse is true for the word "missional." If it comes to mean everything and anything, then soon (if not already) it will mean nothing.

On June 23rd, more than 50 bloggers will blog in response to this one question - "What is missional?" Rick Meigs, who founded the Friend of Missional site, has called for something akin to a Missional Blog-fest in order to reclaim the term "missional" - primarily because of it has become a junk-drawer word - overly and wrongly used.

I'm in. If you'd like to join in on the Missional Blog-fest, just let Rick know. By the way, here are the other bloggers who are joining the party:

Alan Hirsch
Alan Knox
Andrew Jones
Barb Peters
Bill Kinnon
Brad Brisco
Brad Grinnen
Brad Sargent
Brother Maynard
Bryan Riley
Chad Brooks
Chris Wignall
Cobus Van Wyngaard
Dave DeVries
David Best
David Fitch
David Wierzbicki
DoSi
Doug Jones
Duncan McFadzean
Erika Haub
Grace
Jamie Arpin-Ricci
Jeff McQuilkin
John Smulo
Jonathan Brink
JR Rozko
Kathy Escobar
Len Hjalmarson
Makeesha Fisher
Malcolm Lanham
Mark Berry
Mark Petersen
Mark Priddy
Michael Crane
Michael Stewart
Nick Loyd
Patrick Oden
Peggy Brown
Phil Wyman
Richard Pool
Rick Meigs
Rob Robinson
Ron Cole
Scott Marshall
Sonja Andrews
Stephen Shields
Steve Hayes
Tim Thompson
Thom Turner

image: junk drawer by: kosmonautica

insights from redeemer's church planting center

2008-06-07T13:45:00.008-05:00

This past Wednesday Kevin and I went to NY to visit with the some of the staff of the Church Planting Center at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. As I mentioned before, they are #1 on the list of Top 25 Multiplying Churches in the United States. Terry Gyger and Mark Reynolds graciously gave up their morning to give us the opportunity to sit down with them, ask questions, and learn from their experiences and expertise in being a global church planting church. As we're in the process of building a church planting center as well, we wanted to learn from the best - and very few are as effective as Redeemer.

Dr. Gyger and Dr. Reynolds were unbelievable in their grasp of church planting, gospel movements, city culture, effective systems, and the many, many facets of becoming an effective church planting church. Being around Terry Gyger you get the sense that he's forgotten more about church planting than you'll ever know. He was incredibly gracious, and you would have never known that he was the one who actually recruited Tim Keller to come to New York, unless you had read Keller's history of the church. Dr. Gyger's influence is pervasive in the PCA church planting world - his fingerprints on Redeemer and Perimeter Church, two of the top 5 multiplying churches in the U.S. (#1 and #4 respectively), may not be outwardly visible, but pervasive nonetheless.

Here are a few insights from our time there:

Church planting has to be who you are - it has to be in your DNA - and it can't just be a side thing; make it a part of all your vision statements.
Key question the Redeemer CPC asked themselves early on, "Are we going to be a CPC that serves Redeemer or serves the city?" Their answer - the city.
They partner with a ton of people in the city - their Church Planting Alliance has over 17 different denominations.
Bring in people who are experts in the specific are of church planting (assessment, coaching, training, etc.).
To reach the world, reach the world's global cities.
3 things to look for in a "global city":

local influence
regional influence
global connectivity

The KIND of church they start is VERY important - a gospel-centered, balanced ministry, holistic, church planting church
Plant fewer churches and train longer.
Plant resource churches (hubs in a city).
Their goal - to create city-renewing movements.
Quote of the day: "We will know we're finished when we've become a forgotten entity."
Movements attract and prepare leaders.

These are just a FEW of the insights we gained from Redeemer. Keep in mind that they also sent us about 50 pages of documents on their distinctive vision, strategy and theology. That, along with their "Church Planter Manual" and "Coaching Urban Church Planters" Manual were invaluable to getting us prepared to understand and learn from their unique success in planting.

More to come later...

headed to Redeemer's Church Planting Center this week

2008-06-02T17:28:00.002-05:00

This Wednesday Kevin and I leave for NY to visit with the staff of the Church Planting Center at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. They are #1 on the list of Top 25 Multiplying Churches in the United States. We really want to learn from what they are doing to multiply churches, specifically as we look to build a church planting center ourselves, as well as pilot a church planting residency this Fall. Terry Gyger and Mark Reynolds have graciously offered to give us the opportunity to sit down with them and mine the gold of their experiences and expertise in church planting. I'm sure that I'll be blogging about all that we soak up from them this week.

And I got my copies of the Redeemer Church Planting Manuals - the Church Planter Manual and Coaching Urban Church Planters (right). Just in time!

austin city-wide church planter assessment

2008-05-30T19:30:00.003-05:00

Wednesday I had the privilege of being a part of a meeting to discuss the idea of doing a city-wide church planters assessment for Austin. It was hosted by Tim Hawks and John Herrington of Hill Country Bible Church, Glenn Smith of New Church Initiatives and David Smith of the Austin Baptist Association. Also participating were Jonathan Dodson representing Austin City Life and the Austin Area Church Planters Network, several baptist pastors, and myself and Joey Shaw representing Austin Stone Community Church.

Tim is the Senior Pastor at HCBC and it is obvious that he bleeds for the expansion of the Kingdom. You can tell what keeps him up at night - expanding the reign of Jesus through church planting. John is the Church Planting Director at HCBC, is sharp as a tack, extremely wise, and has a passion for seeing the city of Austin saturated with churches. Glenn is the guru of assessing and training church planters. David is one of the most kingdom-minded people you'll meet, who is able to effectively utilize his platform within the ABA to extend the influence of new and existing baptist churches. Don't let the title fool you - he's more Kingdom-focused than anyone you'll meet. Jonathan is one of the smartest and theologcially astute church planters you'll ever meet, but also has a huge heart to shepherd other church planters. And Joey, besides being fluent in Arabic, is an incredible catalyst, church planter, mobilizer and would-be statesman in his own right - not bad for a 24-year-old.

There are several reasons why stuff like this is cool:

It smells like the Kingdom: anytime gospel-centered churches pursue a vision to work together to plant churches Jesus seems to show up.
It's a good start: many of the folks at that table are very experienced in successful church planting. This isn't their first rodeo, so they know what works and what doesn't
It's raises the right kinds of questions: soon after the meeting began it became evident that assessment was only going to be one slice of the church planting pie, although that is what brought us together - the opportunity for a city-wide church planter assessment. It became clear that there would need to be other "engines" and facets of church planting we would need to work together on, including coaching, supervision, funding, research, and training.

As we pilot this city-wide church planter assessment (probably August 25-27) we'll no doubt have to tweak and change things. We'll need to bring more than just white guys to the table for this to truly be a "city-wide" endeavor. We'll need to bring house churches and house church networks to the table for this to truly be a "city-wide" endeavor. And we'll need to give different folks from different backgrounds the same voice in the process.

Hooray for good starts.

image: Austin, Texas-no place like it! by: texas to mexico

a conversation on barriers to a movement in the U.S. - part 1

2008-05-02T13:45:00.005-05:00

I recently had an email conversation with Tim Ahlen on the barriers to a church planting movement (CPM) here in the U.S. Tim was quick to point out that has yet to be a verifiable church planting movement here. And here are his initial observations as to why:

"It seems that there are a number of realities impeding CPM’s in North America.

There is so much “deviant DNA” in North America that rapid discipleship is very difficult. What I mean by that is: in remote areas of Africa, China or India, the only voices competing with Christianity are those of the dominant culture: Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, animism. When Christian teaching is introduced to these cultures, it stands by itself against the dominant cultural religion. In North America, if you teach Calvinism, you will be contradicted by other Christian voices who are Arminian. If you are a dispensational premillenialist, you will be contradicted by a host of other millennial views. If you are a Trinitarian, you will be contradicted by JW’s, Mormons and other cults. IN addition, the long history of Christianity in North America has established certain institutional and educational expectations in people’s minds that are very difficult to overcome. Bottom line, it takes a lot longer to communicate the simple and essential message of Christ in North America.

Related to the above issue, many , if not most, North Americans have been inoculated with a Christianity that is weak, anemic, institutional and cultural. However, it is strong enough to hinder people from getting “infected with the real thing.”

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? What do you think are barriers to seeing a movement of the gospel here in the U.S.?

image: the wall by: macieklew

Praying for the shalom of our neighborhood

2008-04-04T11:47:00.004-05:00

Here's what we are praying for these days for our neighborhood, and also how you can pray for the shalom of this neighborhood:

1. For racial unity. The community has changed from almost 100% African-American to 75% Hispanic in less than 20 years. Getting people to understand and work together is challenging, but there has been progress.

2. For the upcoming Unity Walk on April 26 as an expression of working together by churches, ethnic groups, new and old residents, generations, friends.

3. For the many young people who are growing up in single-parent families. Pray for dads to take responsibility for children and be good examples.

4. For the older African-American Churches (College Heights, Black's Memorial, Page Memorial and St. John Church of God in Christ) and the newer Hispanic/Anglo churches who minister here (Iglesia Ebenezer, Iglesia El Shaddai, Victory Christian, Austin Stone). Most of the neighborhood, though nominally catholic, is unchurched.

5. For affordable housing for seniors, young families and new immigrants. Rents, house prices and taxes continue to go up and stress poor families (along with gas prices). Pray for the affordable housing summit on April 12, as neighbors get together with experts to discuss what we can do to help people keep their homes.

6. For emergency shelters and transitional housing. There are around 100 children at Pickle Elementary School who are technically homeless (living combined with another family, in hotels, in shelters).

7. For the teachers, social workers, ministers, librarians, rec. center workers, after school workers, health professionals, etc. who work hard for children every day. That they not wear out and that they have wisdom in dealing with the many difficult situations they face with kids.

8. For marriage to become normal in our community, and that kids would have stable families with a mom and dad.

9. For a reduction in teen pregnancy (there are 10 pregnant girls at Webb Middle School and many more at Reagan).

10. For the police (especially Officer Jimmie Diaz and Officer Roman Lopez) as they build bridges with residents who are often suspicious and afraid of police. For a continued reduction in drugs and prostitution.

11. For the salvation of many, many families and for people to communicate and disciple in culturally appropriate ways.

12. For Ricardo Avila, a long time teacher at Webb Middle School and pastor in St. John. His wife, Sharon, is in the last stages of cancer. They are much beloved in the community.

Praise for:

All of the many volunteers who mentor kids and work in afterschool programs.

The improvement of schools in our community.

The continued reduction in crime and drugs in St. Johns.

The many people who are getting involved in supporting their own community.

image: st johns camp by: caryn werner

Building a Movement of Missional Communities - part 5

2008-03-30T23:18:00.002-05:00

To build anything you must start with the end in mind. This is called endvisioning. Endvisioning starts with looking at the final result you want to achieve and then finding the critical path that gets you there from here. This assumes that you understand your target group. You ask the questions:

"What will it take for all my people to be reached?"
"What is needed?"
"What will it look like when they are reached?"

For example, there is a true story of a people group in China where the strategists realized there were 4800 unreached villages among 1.4 million people. So they asked the question, "What is needed?"

They needed 4800 churches (missional communities) in 4800 villages.

Can you see any way to get there in an oppressive country where evangelists are illegal, the people are remote, illiterate and poor, and as foreigners you speak no Chinese language or local dialect and have no Chinese partners? YET, the end-vision is STILL 4800 churches (missional communities).

After looking at the end, you ask what the stages of a movement would look like just prior to reaching your end-vision. These strategists in China started with the end in mind and worked their way back:

5. 4800 village churches
4. 90+ district churches
3. 35 key area churches
2. 11 county churches (Prioritize most populous counties)
1. Nothing but a vision

The KEY to the whole movement was starting churches (missional communities) with the “seeds” of a kingdom movement within them – "movement" churches. They realized that yes, they could plead, prod, encourage and train local Christians to start 11 “seed” churches. And they helped them start horse churches not mule churches - horses reproduce... mules do not.

So, start with the end in mind.

[ Review: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4]

image: Movement/Movimiento by: victor_nuno

Building a Movement of Missional Communities - part 4

2008-03-22T16:22:00.002-05:00

In Part 1 and 2 of this series we looked at the first six elements of a movement of missional communities (MMC), or multiplying house churches. Let's look at elements 7 through 10:

7. Small Groups / House Churches / Missional Communities
MMCs are not sparked by people whose idea of “church” is just a large group of unengaged people sitting and soaking in a sanctuary. MMCs are sparked by people whose idea of “church” is an interdependent network of communities of people gathering wherever they can to minister to one another to be on mission. These groups may or may not come together on a regular basis to celebrate, worship, and receive advanced training. (Our network of missional communities do come together weekly on Sundays.)

Reproducing communities have 10 to 30 members. They have an effective witness in their locality. They meet in an intimate setting where they can easily hold one another accountable. Each group is a spiritual family with a high sense of mutual concern. Leadership tasks are more easily done.

P.O.U.C.H. Communities:
• Participative Bible Teaching: Every member contributes. Every member reproduces.
• Obedience to Scripture: The Bible, not a leader, is the ultimate authority. Study emphasizes application.
• Unpaid Leaders: Self-supporting men and women. The get on-the-job training as they need it – little by little, over time.
• Cell Groups (already discussed their traits).
• Houses, coffee shops, and other “third places” are typical meeting places: Encourages witness to family and neighbors. Can use existing facilities. No need for large funds and projects.

8. Missional Communities Starting New Missional Communities
MMCs are not sparked by people who want to plant missional communities one at a time. MMCs are sparked by people who want to see groups planting groups. They teach new believers that reproduction is natural. They teach new believers that no external aids are needed to start a new missional community.

9. Rapid Reproduction and Multiplication
MMCs are not sparked by people who plan for slow growth. MMCs are sparked by people who plan for rapid growth. A MMC continues to spread if believers, groups, and leaders are reproducing regularly.

Intentional multiplication launches new missional groups in a strategy for reaching unreached networks of people adding fuel to the fire of a movement. The resources are in the Harvest. We’ve estimated that there are approx. 600,000 lost people in Austin! That means that 99.7% of our future leaders, hosts, apprentices, and laborers are not yet believers. That means that we must focus on prayer, evangelism and simple training to find the majority of our future leaders and laborers.

10. Healthy, Missional Communities
MMCs are not sparked by people who have a low view of church. MMCs are sparked by people who long to see healthy communities and churches. Healthy Traits: worshipping Christ, living in community, getting trained for ministry, and making disciples.

[ Review: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3]

image: Movement/Movimiento by: victor_nuno

Building a Movement of Missional Communities - part 3

2008-03-20T17:08:00.002-05:00

George Patterson wrote a book called Church Multiplication Guide based on his experience with church multiplication movements in Latin America. Four things he says that have been helpful for my understanding of leadership and movements of the gospel:

1. Loving obedience to God's Word should be the mark of success for leadership.

2. Keep the bar for leadership high, but the entry point low.

3. On-the-job training is the best way to develop leaders.

4. Leadership development should be little-by-little and topic-by-topic.

We will never see a movement of missional communities as long as we wait for the "perfect" leader. Peter was years into leading the largest church in the history of Christianity (at the time) when Paul rebuked him for being a racist and having bad theology. Why do we look for the perfect leader when the New Testament model was full of leaders who were imperfect, yet learned and grew over time?

[ Review Part 1 , Part 2 ]

image: Movement/Movimiento by: victor_nuno

Building a Movement of Missional Communities - part 2

2008-03-18T15:08:00.004-05:00

In Part 1 of this series we looked at the first two elements of a movement of missional communities (MMC) or house churches. Let's look at a few more universal elements:

3. Intentional Planting of new Missional Communities
MMCs are not sparked by people who are aiming only to do needed community projects, start Bible studies, evangelize and/or disciple. MMCs happen when groups plant new groups. To spark an MMC, someone must design a strategy that will get missional communities to plant new missional communities. To spark a MMC, someone must implement that strategy.

4. Scriptural Authority
MMCs are not sparked by people who have several sources of authority. MMCs are sparked by people who consider the Bible the one and only authority regarding what to believe and how to live. The Bible must become the guiding source for belief, church polity, and life itself. Bible teaching is usually based on questions which arise from the text itself. New believers hold each other accountable to live under the Bible’s authority. In MMCs, two measures of success are used:

1) obedience of new believers, missional communities, and leaders to the Bible; and
2) degree of reproduction.

5. Local Leadership
MMCs are not sparked by people who believe that only mature outsiders can start and lead new missional communities. MMCs are sparked by people who raise up local people to start and lead new missional communities. Rather than doing all the work themselves, they coach people in doing the ministry as soon as possible.

6. Lay Leadership
MMCs are not sparked by people who believe that only professionally trained people can start and lead new missional communities. MMCs are sparked by people who raise up groups of unpaid lay people to lead and start new missional communities. These leaders are bi-vocational.

Role of Paid Clergy: As an MMC unfolds, the need for paid clergy often emerges. However, the people on the growing edge of the MMC continue to be bi-vocational believers. This ensures the largest possible pool of potential leaders and church planters.

[ Review Part 1 ]

image: Movement/Movimiento by: victor_nuno

Redemption and Restoration - Block Party style!

2008-03-17T23:49:00.004-05:00

My wife has a great post on our first block party here in the neighborhood. Here's an excerpt:

We truly had the poor, homeless, 2 prostitutes, one widow, one drug dealer and many children eating together with the believers of Christ. I'm telling you, there is no life better than that!

I love that we live in a neighborhood where a professor and a prostitute can come together at the same party. I love that we can engage in redemption and restoration, and join God in His mission here in this community. Trust me, He's been here far longer than any of us, and we are standing on the shoulders of so many other spiritual giants who have gone before, but how great it is to be a part of seeing Jesus renew all things.

The words of N.T. Wright are still ringing in my ears:

“The whole world is God’s holy land. At the moment the world appears as a place of suffering and sorrow as well as of power and beauty. But God is reclaiming it. That’s what Jesus death and resurrection were all about. And we are called to be part of that reclaiming. One day all creation will be rescued from slavery, from the corruption, decay, and death which deface its beauty, destroy its relationships, remove the sense of God’s presence from it, and make it a place of injustice, violence, and brutality. That is the message of rescue, of “salvation,” at the heart of” the gospel." - Simply Christian

simple & organic

2008-03-14T18:45:00.003-05:00

I've decided, after a year or so of using another blog design, to go with a simpler, more organic look and feel. In my old blog, the links, book review, blogrolls, and buttons were all crowded on the left and right side of the blog, making it the blog equivalent of a Golden Corral buffet. (Which type of mashed potato should I choose? There's so many...)

The links, book reviews, and blogrolls are all above, granted that you take advantage of the little tag labeled "Pull". Once you do, you will notice that all of the old links have been compressed and categorized into far fewer links to navigate. My hope is that this will be easier on the eyes, and simpler to navigate. Plus I like the organic feel.

Enjoy~

Building a Movement of Missional Communities - part 1

2008-02-23T08:54:00.015-06:00

A few years ago I read a formative book, which, with the Book of Acts, has both informed and colored most of what I have been attempting to explore, experiement and figure out in ministry these days. That book, Church Planting Movements by David Garrison, is an exploration of some of the movements of the gospel that are happening around the world today. From north India to China to Latin America, God is moving in unprecedented ways, birthing and multiplying tens of thousands of house churches using ordinary people and simple, reproducible and scalable discipleship. Our vision for our missional communities at the Austin Stone was birthed out of learning what God is doing around the world through church planting movements. Our vision is this: to build a movement of missional communities who worship Christ, live in community, get trained for ministry and make disciples together.

That has meant totally retooling much of what ministry I've learned and done in the past - leadership development and training, de-educating people from traditional church ways of doing things and retraining them, methods of discipleship, understanding incarnational ministry, being the church instead of doing church, etc.

This starts with understanding, internalizing and living out what it means to build a movement of missional communities.

DEFINITION OF A MOVEMENT OF MISSIONAL COMMUNITIES

A Movement of Missional Communities is a rapid multiplication of lay-led missional communities (or house churches) starting other missional communities that sweeps through a people group or population segment. There are both Universal Elements to a movements, elements that absolutely must be there, and Common elements, elements that should be there but sometimes aren't. Here are the first two universal elements:

1. Prayer
MMCs are not sparked by people who read and talk about prayer. MMCs are sparked by people who pray. MMCs are sparked by people who get many others to pray. From the beginning, those involved must wholly rely on God's power. That way, the new believers, groups, and leaders will also learn to pray.

2. Abundant Gospel Sowing
MMCs are not sparked by people who are shy about sharing the Good News. MMCs are sparked by people who see that hundreds and even thousands of people are hearing the Good News. They know that those who sow abundantly usually reap abundantly.

Witness is Word + Deed. Reaching our spheres of influence and relationships is the primary way that the Gospel races through a population group. Loving acts of compassion, mercy and social justice demonstrate and validate the message we preach.

image: Movement/Movimiento by: victor_nuno

Book Review: A Theology As Big As The City by Ray Bakke

2008-02-05T10:33:00.000-06:00

Ray Bakke is Chancellor, distinguished professor of global urban ministry and Chairman of the Board of Regents at Bakke Graduate University of Ministry. He has also served as Global Urban Studies Professor at Northwest Graduate School and Executive Director of International Urban Associates. In 1989, he founded International Urban Associates (IUA), which has catalyzed a network of more than 100 urban-based church and mission leaders to serve some of the largest cities of the world. He spent much of his early ministry years in Chicago, where much of his theology of the city was formed. He holds a diploma from Moody Bible Institute, BA from Seattle Pacific College, an MDiv from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, an STM and a DMin from McCormick Theological Seminary. He has authored numerous books on urban theology and ministry, highlighting the need for Christians to address the plight of the urban poor and marginalized.

After laying out the unique challenges in and need for urban ministry, Bakke notes that the thesis of this book is that “the primary challenge” of urban ministry “is theological” (Bakke: 14). His goal is to show from the Bible that God is deeply concerned about the structures and the individuals in cities. From Moses to Jeremiah, Bakke sets forth a biblical theology of ministry in and to cities. He lays out not only the need for an urban theology for our quickly urbanizing world (Introduction), but he also makes the case that many of the leaders and stories of the Bible are completely urban-centric. From Moses to Ruth, and Jeremiah to Isaiah, Bakke is quick to point out that many of our well-known biblical narratives are firmly rooted in God’s concern for cities. While looking at education, community, leadership development, migration, and the family, Bakke not only deals with many different subjects, but also how they interrelate with urban theology.

Bakke’s book was not only a paradigm-shifter for me when I first read it, but also a ministry-saver. I first read this book several years ago right after moving into the inner-city of Memphis. I had a heart for the city, but very little theology of the city. Bakke’s book was not just refreshing and insightful, it was engaging and practical. I owe much of my understanding, language, and strategy to this book. Even today, it informs my ministry in and for the city. I currently live in an at-risk neighborhood in Austin. It’s no Memphis, but it has its challenges. And Bakke’s book has refreshed my once again, giving me a renewed vision for God’s heart for not just this community and city, but for the many global cities that still pine underneath the weight of injustice. I have to admit, the strength of Bakke’s book is that he reads almost everything in the Bible through the lens of this theology of the city. Unfortunately, this is also its only weakness. There are slight stretches at times to make the jump to urban ministry (i.e. reading the Song of Songs through the lens of urban kids with sexual temptation). I appreciate the application, but it can still be made without the leap to urban-specific theology. Again, Bakke’s book has been and still is one of the most formative books in my theology of the city and of ministry in an urban (and therefore, global) context. It is a must-read for anyone wanting to do ministry locally and/or globally.

You can download helpful study notes here.

blog un-fast

2008-02-01T13:52:00.000-06:00

I'm breaking my fast from blogging. I'm taking a break from my seminary program, and definitely need to blog about some of the things I've been processing. We recently packed up and moved to a community we have a heart for and feel called to serve in during this season. Call it an at-risk community or what, but it's about as close to the type of neighborhood we lived in during our time in Memphis as we could find.

No, we didn't choose this neighborhood because it was the safest in Austin (just the opposite). No, we didn't choose this neighborhood because it has the best schools in Austin (just the opposite). No, we didn't choose this neighborhood because everyone is white, young and middle-class (just the opposite). And oh yeah, we do have John Perkins, Bob Lupton and the CCDA to partially blame for our choice of neighborhoods.

So, one of the things I'm going to be doing over the next year or so is highlighting issues of justice, poverty and community development.

I'm also excited about an experiment I'm doing with missional communities right now. I've gathered a group of like-minded missional-ists. We are going through Perspectives together, learning about and engaging in our at-risk neighborhood, as well as learning about and engaging with an unreached people group in the Sudan. It's guaranteed to not be a flop, mainly because it's just an experiment and I'm not sure what's going to come of it. But what happens when you gather passionate people to learn about and engage in God's mission to the poor, oppressed and unreached together? Only time will tell...

image: cup of water by: matt_so

links: everything urban & global

2007-10-14T18:18:00.000-05:00

everything urban

Theology of the City

Loving the Urban World

Urban Perspectives

The Creative Class

CCDA

A New Kind Of Urban Christian

everything global

The Next Christianity

Jihad vs McWorld

Globalization

The World is Flat

The World is Spiky

Expansion of Christianity

Global Christianity

links: leadership

2007-10-14T18:17:00.000-05:00

Bobby Clinton

Free Management Library

Peter Drucker

Barna Research

Building Church Leaders

links: missional church

2007-10-14T18:16:00.000-05:00

Acts 29

Austin Stone

Vision USA

CP Movements

CP Resources

NewChurches.com

Friend of Missional

NextChurch Resources

Tim Keller Resources

MisLinks-CP Resources

Fellowship Associates

Church Planting Village

Redeemer Church Planting

links: theology

2007-10-14T18:15:00.000-05:00

Desiring God

Follow the Rabbi

GOCN

John Owen

Jonathan Edwards

Missiology.org

Newbigin.net

book reviews

2007-10-14T18:14:00.000-05:00

book reviews :: leadership

book reviews :: missional church

Book Review: Incarnational Ministry - Hiebert & Meneses

Book Review: The Open Secret - Lesslie Newbigin

Book Review: God's Missionary People - Charles Van Engen

Book Review: Cultivating a Life for God - Neil Cole

book reviews :: urban & global

Book Review: A Theology As Big As The City - Ray Bakke

Book Review: Ministering Cross-Culturally - Lingenfelter & Mayers

sites I use

2007-10-14T18:13:00.000-05:00

Austin Stone

Browster

my del.icio.us

Digg

my flickr

flock

Page Flakes

Pandora

Qumana

X3 Watch Accountability Software

Blog fast

2007-09-29T15:30:00.000-05:00

I'm currently fasting from blogging... partially because I just don't have the time or margin, but also because I don't have the time and margin. ok, that's the same thing. I'd sound a lot cooler if I just said that I'm going into a creative brainstorming season on the future of this blog, but that would be a ridiculous lie.

Enjoy some new stuff - the book shelf on the right... And enjoy the archives as well.

stew

image: lost by Ruud!

Back from seminary at Fuller

2007-07-31T21:06:00.001-05:00

This is my MAGL cohort at Fuller. MAGL stands for Masters of Arts in Global Leadership, which is somewhat of an arrogant title, if you ask me. It's just a couple of notches below an M.A. in Benevolent Dictatorship, I think. We've all spent the last 2 years together in a learning and praxis community. Praxis is a fancy word for reflection and action... All of the people in this group are in ministry somewhere in the world - from Turkey to Chicago to Israel to Cambodia. What a phenomenal group of people!

The last week of classes went well. I've also got a couple of 30 page papers to write between now and December, as well as a few book reviews to complete.

Here's a picture of the books I've either read or will read and review for the classes that I'll be finishing up over the next few months. The stack on the left is for the course called Global Leadership: Implications for Ministry, and the stack on the right is for a course called Organizational Dynamics. The stack in the middle is my beautiful wife on the computer...

We have to write a 30-40 page paper for each course, and I'm actually a little excited about both (don't tell anyone I said that)... I think I'm going to write my paper for Org. Dynamics on how to apply Emotional Intelligence theory to the organizational change process, and specifically use the Austin Stone Community Church as my reference and case study. Since we're going through a church-wide change process, I thought this would be the best use of time and energy. My second paper is an integration paper - I have to integrate everything I've learned so far in the last 2 years, so I think I'm going to write on what it will take to build a movement of missional communities. You know... fun stuff.

Live blogging from MAGL in Pasadena - Friday, Week 1

2007-07-20T13:03:00.000-05:00

We learned alot about Emotional Intelligence yesterday. It's a fascinating area of leadership. From Goleman's research, he noticed that great leadership had little to do with logical intelligence, creativity, or even hard work. Here's what he says:

“There are four basic domains or aspects of emotional intelligence (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management). These domains are closely intertwined with a dynamic relationship between them. For example, a leader can’t manage his emotions well if he has little or no awareness of them. And if his emotions are out of control, then his ability to handle relationships will suffer. In summary, self-awareness facilitates both empathy and self-management, and these two, in combination, allow effective relationship management. EI leadership, then, builds up from a foundation of self-awareness.” Daniel Goleman, Primal Leadership, p. 30

Let’s look more closely at each of those basic domains:

Self-awareness
There are several kinds of self-awareness: knowing one’s feelings and their impact on others, knowing one’s strengths and limits, and having an accurate sense of worth and capabilities. Communication begins with being able to express one’s own needs and being able to listen attentively to others. Self aware people recognize and manage patterns of inner thoughts, are clear about feelings and hence have better control of moods and emotions, and get beyond emotional ‘noise’, which enables better and deeper listening. Lack of self awareness results in being unclear of true motivation or goals, being incapable of candor or assertiveness, and reduced ‘deep listening’.

Self-management
This involves the following six elements:

Emotional self-control—Keeping disruptive emotions and impulses under control
Transparency—Displaying honesty and integrity; trustworthiness
Adaptability—Flexibility in adapting to changing situations and overcoming obstacles
Achievement—Drive to improve, be effective and meet inner standards of excellence
Initiative—Readiness to act and seize opportunities
Optimism—Seeing the positive in events

Leaders can’t manage emotions in others without first handling their own.

Social Awareness
This involves the following components:

Empathy—Sensing others’ emotions, understanding their perspective, and taking active interest in their concerns
Organizational awareness—Reading the currents, decision networks, and politics at the organizational level
Service—Recognizing and meeting follower, client, and customer needs.

Relationship Management
Relationship management is friendliness with a purpose: moving people in the right direction. This involves the following critical elements for effective leadership:

Inspirational leadership — Guiding and motivating with a compelling vision
Influence — Use range of communication for persuasion
Developing others — Bolstering others’ abilities through opportunity, feedback and guidance
Change catalyst — Initiating, managing, and leading in a new direction
Conflict Management — Resolving disagreements
Building bonds — Cultivating and maintaining a web of relationships
Teamwork and collaboration — Cooperation and team building

Live blogging from MAGL in Pasadena - Friday, Week 1

2007-07-20T11:46:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we looked at the subject of Emotional Intelligence — which is how leaders handle themselves and their relationships. This idea is based primarily on research coming out of Harvard University by Dr. Daniel Goleman and his team.

Goleman asserts that self-absorbed leaders can often be clueless, but that gifted leadership occurs where head and heart – thought and feeling – meet. These are the two wings that allow a leader to soar.

He asserts that there are key reasons for leadership failure due to lack of Emotional Intelligence:

An inability to manage relationships well
An inability to implement change successfully

Stop and think about yourself. Have you ever…

- Demonstrated anger that didn’t make sense to you?

- Been unable to express what you had to say?

- Felt like the other person wasn’t really there?

- Been unable to listen attentively because of your mood?

Then maybe you have something to learn about Emotional Intelligence, which I'll post more about later...

Live blogging from MAGL in Pasadena - pt. 4

2007-07-20T10:25:00.000-05:00

Evangelism in A Post Christian Culture

ok, so we're reading through a ton of books, and I've already mentioned this one... From the same book [ Exiles by Michael Frost ] - here's a great way of viewing evangelism through the lens of the incarnation of Christ:

"...only a compassion that acts is acceptable in incarnational ministry. Thus, following Jesus' example, incarnational Christian witness will include the following four aspects:

1. An active sharing of life, participating in the fears, frustrations, and afflictions of the host community. The prayer of the exile should be, "Lord, let your mind be in me," for no witness is capable of incarnationality without the mind of Jesus.

2. An employment of the language and thought forms of those with whom we seek to share Jesus. After all, he used common speech and stories: salt, light, fruit, birds, and the like. He seldom used theological or religious jargon or technical terms.

3. A preparedness to go to people, not expecting them to come to us. As Jesus came from the heavens to humanity, we enter into the "tribal" realities of human society.

4. A confidence that the gospel can be communicated by ordinary means, through acts of servanthood, loving relationships, good deeds; in this way the exile [ incarnational Christian ] becomes an extension of the incarnation in our time. Deeds thus create words."

Live blogging from MAGL in Pasadena - pt. 3

2007-07-19T23:35:00.000-05:00

I'm in Pasadena as part of a seminar for the MAGL (M.A. in Global Leadership). We've been reading through quite a few books, and wanted to share a few gems from them as I come across them. A little quote from a book called Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture by Michael Frost:

"'Christendom' is the name given to the religious culture that has dominated Western society since the fourth century... The death of Christendom removes the final props that have supported the culturally respectable, mainstream, suburban version of Christianity. This is a Christianity expressed by the "Sunday Christian" phenomenon wherein church attendance had very little effect on the lifestyles or values or priorities expressed from Monday to Saturday. This version of Christianity is a fascade, a method for practicioners to appear like fine, upstanding citizens without allowing the claims and teaching of Jesus to bite very hard in everyday life. With the death of Christendom the game is up. There's less and less reason for such upstanding citizens to join with the Christian community for the sake of respectability or acceptance. The church in fewer and fewer situations represents the best vehicle for public service or citizenship, leaving only the faithful behind to rediscover the Christian experience as it was intended: a radical, subversive, compassionate community of followers of Jesus."

Live blogging from MAGL in Pasadena - 2

2007-07-19T12:28:00.000-05:00

In an organization, different people and groups take on different roles and functions. I find that I am more of a Creative Designer - I like to design the big picture, build it and then let others take it and implement it. According to Harvard scholar Henry Mintzberg, organization structures should divide and coordinate the work. They also should provide 5 basic functions:

The Operating core is the heart of every organization, the part that produces the essential outputs that keep it alive. It encompasses those members who perform the basic work related directly to the mission, to the production.

Strategic Apex – refers to the leader(s) in the organization who have final authority/responsibility for decision making for the organization as a whole and who insure that the organization serves its mission in an effective way.

Middle Line – refers to those leaders in the organization who have line responsibility, that is, have formal authority to supervise others in the middle line and operating core and have accountability for this supervision to the strategic apex.

Technostructure – refers to the analysts and their clerical support people who serve to provide back-up analytical work for the strategic apex, middle line, and operating core as well as standardization in terms of work, planning, and personnel practices. These are the people who ask “how can we do things better? What will help us accomplish our vision?” People in the technostructure serve the organization by influencing the work of others. These analysts are removed from the operating work/flow – they may design it, plan it, change it, or train the people who do it, but they usually do not do it themselves.

Support Staff – refers to those workers in an organization who provide support (administrative) to the organization outside its operating workflow.

image: cog-wheels and springs by Little Niels

Live blogging from MAGL in Pasadena

2007-07-18T13:33:00.000-05:00

I'm in a 2 week intensive course at Fuller Seminary as part of the MAGL (M.A. in Global Leadership) degree. The first week is a course called Understanding Organizational Dynamics, so I'll be blogging about the highlights from this course this week.

The Fifth Discipline, a book by Peter Senge, is a book about how organizations can grow and develop through learning. He asserts that an organization achieves its goals by providing an environment conducive to the CONTINUOUS LEARNING and development of individuals,teams, and the organization. He says that a learning organization is one in which people at all levels individually and collectively are continually increasing their capacity to produce the results they really care about. It is an organization that, when a mistake is made, notices the mistake, fixes it, figures out what caused the problem and corrects the root cause, with an emphasis on the root and not the symptom.

He goes on to list the core of learning organization work is based on five "learning disciplines"—lifelong programs of study and practice:

Personal Mastery--learning to expand our PERSONAL CAPACITY to create results we most desire and creating an ORGANIZATIONAL ENVIRONMENT which encourages all its members to develop themselves toward the goals and purposes they choose.

Mental Models--reflecting upon, continually clarifying and improving our internal pictures of the world and seeing how they shape our actions and decisions. Knowing the paradigms out of which we operate.

Shared Vision--building a sense of commitment in a group, developing SHARED IMAGES OF THE FUTURE we seek to create, and developing the principles and guiding practices by which we hope to get there.

Team Learning--transforming conversational and collective thinking skills so that groups of people can develop intelligence and ability greater than the sum of individual members' talents.

Systems Thinking--a way of thinking about and a language for describing and understanding forces and interrelationships that shape the behavior of systems.

Some Thoughts on a Biblical Theology of Mission - Part 3

2007-07-18T08:00:00.000-05:00

Charles Van Engen, in God’s Missionary People, makes the point that the local church is in essence a band of missionaries, and that church and mission are interwoven. In fact, he quotes the International Missionary Council in saying that “…there is no participation in Christ without participation in his mission to the world” (Van Engen: 29). He continually makes this link by adding that “only as congregations intentionally live out their nature as the missionary people of God will the Church begin to emerge to become in fact what it is by faith” (Van Engen: 44).

Van Engen draws on Scripture to make the case for the link between church and mission, therefore making the Body of Christ, by nature, a missionary venture. In commenting on Acts 1:8 he poses this question:

“Could it not be that Jesus is telling his disciples that they are a certain kind of fellowship which in its essential nature is an ever-widening, mushrooming group of missionary witnesses?” (Van Engen: 42)

Acts 1:8 is really a fleshed out version of one of the many Great Commission verses like Matthew 28:18-20. Although Acts 1:8 is more of a promise than a command, it carries with it the authority of Jesus who propels us outward, as Van Engen points out, as an “an ever-widening, mushrooming group of missionary witnesses” (Van Engen: 42). These commands, together with a vision of the future of God’s reign and the under girding of Jesus’ payment with His blood, gives us a robust and biblical theology of mission.

Van Engen, Charles Edward
1991 God's Missionary People: Rethinking the Purpose of the Local Church. Grand Rapids: Baker.

image: crossroads by PedjaP

Some Thoughts on a Biblical Theology of Mission - Part 2

2007-07-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

The Bible opens with a dance. The first three verses, in fact, draw a picture of this dance – a waltz of universal proportions with the elegance of flawless yet artistic expression. God creating – the Spirit hovering – the Word being spoken. God the Father, God the Spirit and God the Son moving and flowing in those first opening lines of Genesis. Lesslie Newbigin, in The Open Secret, gives a framework for this dance, this mission – a Trinitarian framework. He looks at mission through a three-pronged lens – “as proclaiming the kingdom of the Father, as sharing the life of the Son, and as bearing the witness of the Spirit” (Newbigin: 29). Newbigin’s theological framework is deeply embedded in the Trinitiarian perspective of mission as faith, love, and hope as a reflection of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. His perspective echoes that ancient dance that continues to being light and life into a dark and rebellious world.

Certainly Newbigin is on to something when he observes that “God is indeed active in history” (Newbigin: 39). It is by faith, love and hope that this activity manifests in regards to mission. It is by faith that we proclaim the reign of God, love as Jesus loved by virtue of the incarnation, and put our hope in the obedience to the Spirit. It is when we join the dance that we fully live in mission and for mission.

And Revelation chapter 5 gives a glimpse of the picture of an overarching theology of why we do mission. Speaking of Jesus the text says that “You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (NASB). Jesus has purchased all of God’s people of all time. Because of this purchase we can be guaranteed that the work of mission, the work of evangelism, the work of indiscriminately preaching the gospel until His elect come in, cannot fail. We have the purchase of the Son with the work of the Spirit backed by the sovereignty of God. His purposes cannot fail, and therefore we have the confidence to be on mission with God.

Newbigin, Lesslie
1994 The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

image: crossroads by PedjaP

Some Thoughts on a Biblical Theology of Mission - Part 1

2007-07-10T21:28:00.000-05:00

The Bible tells a story. A grand, overarching narrative of God’s grace and beauty. It tells the story of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and even Renewal. But often we stop at Redemption. As important as the cross was and is, it is not the final resting place of God’s dealings with the universe. After the cross was the tomb – and then the Resurrection, that great stake in the ground where God cracked open the rebellious and fallen vault called “The World” and began to flood it with the light of life. This light of life that fills the world is the resurrected Christ. He typifies what all of the new people, new heavens, new earth, new city and new universe will look like someday. That is the end goal – the complete and total renewal and restoration. God initially saw the creation as good, but it was lost in the Fall. But the only thing better than an original creation, is a creation that has been lost and then restored.

Biblically we are to be about both redemption and renewal. The separation of these two is unbiblical, and does not reflect the gospel of the Kingdom. Unfortunately, it wasn't until the early 1900's that we in the U.S. began to see a bifurcation in these two areas, mainly because of a reaction to German biblical criticism. This criticism led to many of the mainline denominations dropping the deity of Christ like a rotten tomato, yet still holding to the "social gospel" of outreach to the poor and oppressed. This caused a reaction in the "fundamentalist" camp that then said that the "social gospel" is of the devil, and we need to retreat to biblical inerrancy and hold our ground for the truth, throwing out the poor and oppressed baby with the bathwater.)

Lesslie Newbigin, in his book on the theology of mission aptly titled The Open Secret, asserts that the dichotomy of justice verses conversion must change, adding that the “first need” of these dichotomies “is for theological understanding” as well as a “restructuring of structures” (Newbigin: 11). This holistic perspective of mission is crucial. Newbigin asserts this by pointing out the implications of the confession of “Jesus as Lord.” This confession, he notes,

“…implies a commitment to make good that confession in relation to the whole life of the world – its philosophy, its culture, and it politics no less than the personal lives of its people. The Christian mission is thus to act out in the whole life of the whole world the confession that Jesus is Lord of all” (Newbigin: 17).

I believe that these two orientations should, and must, go together. On the cross, God purchased redemption. But the Bible doesn't end there. It goes on through to the book of Revelation where there is, guess what, a renewed heavens, a renewed earth, a renewed city, a renewed Jerusalem, and us, yes, us with a renewed body. God is going from redemption toward renewal. He is going somewhere with all this - to the renewing of all things (see also Colossians). And the resurrection was a stake in the ground to say, "Look, you want to know where I'm going with all this? Look at Jesus and his... yep, you guessed it - renewed body." God is moving toward the renewal of all things.

It is far too easy to focus primarily on redemption, living out the vestiges of the inner-Gnostic in all of us. But we also have to focus on renewal as well. The fundamentalist want to focus on the spiritual aspects of redemption while the social gospel folks want to focus on renewal. Both are needed because both are what God is actively doing right now. Jesus is not a disembodied spirit - his is in a renewed body as a foretaste of the ultimate renewal we will all see one day (see also Colossians and Rev. 19 & 20). As N.T. Wright once said, “There is life after ‘life after death’” (Wright: 219). There is life after heaven - heaven is a holding tank, not a final resting place. The renewed earth, whether we like it or not, is our final home. This means that we must be committed to the whole gospel for the whole person.

Newbigin, Lesslie
1994 The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Wright, N.T.
2006 Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense. New York: Harper Collins.

image: crossroads by PedjaP

Top 25 Multiplying Churches

2007-06-28T21:10:00.000-05:00

Now this is a "Top Whatever" list that I can get in to... Check out the article in Outreach Magazine about the top 25 multiplying churches in America.

HT: Bob Roberts

A small marker on the road of blogging

2007-06-24T22:35:00.000-05:00

I told myself that I would post when my blog got over 10,000 hits. Not a big deal, but at least it's a little marker on the road of blogging. Here's the pic from my ClustrMaps map:

Running total of visits to the above URL since 12 Jun 2006: 10,014

Book Review: Ministering Cross-Culturally - Lingenfelter & Mayers

2007-06-24T16:44:00.000-05:00

In the Preface, the authors make it clear that “the subject of this book is the tension and conflict that missionaries, pastors, and laypersons experience when they attempt to work with people who come from different cultural and social backgrounds” (p. 9). As a pastor and mobilizer, it is my heart to equip people to be missional, and that means that they will need to work with and love people with different backgrounds, cultural assumptions, and belief systems. This book is a helpful tool in realizing the equipping that is needed to accomplish this task. The main tool or model for understanding these differences “was developed by Marvin Mayers” and “grew out of his experience as a missionary” (p. 9). The book begins by diving into the context and metaphor for ministry, namely, the incarnation of Jesus Christ (p. 13). It then walks through the Mayers model of basic values, and continues on by looking specifically at several tensions that we face in the conflict that arises when people of different cultures interact – tensions of time, judgment, handling crises, goals, self-worth and vulnerability. The book ends with an entreaty to realizing and assimilating this understanding of difference, and using the model as a tool for healthy interpersonal, and inter-cultural, ministry.

My review of this book led me to ask the following questions:

How can the Mayers model be applied to my current context?

We are a missional church who want to be full of missional people who are redemptively engaging the cultures that surround them. Whether that culture be the culture of a business like Dell, or the culture of a Hindu neighbor from India, our people are surrounded by unique opportunities to live out the gospel in their spheres of influence. Mayers model of basic values (p. 29), and the assessment that goes along with it in this book (p. 30-34), provide a great framework with which to build an understanding and awareness of the ways in which we value different things like time, events, relationships, tasks and status. A keen cultural self-awareness as well as an awareness of another’s culture is paramount in understanding the bridges for the gospel, especially in our pluralistic society. I will definitely be using this assessment often as I train others to be missional.

What in this book is reproducible for leadership development?

“If we are to follow the example of Christ, we must aim at incarnation!” (p. 25). These words express one of the most reproducible elements of leadership development – that of releasing ourselves from attachments in order to fully model Christ for an emerging leader. Since ministry revolves around relationships, this book helps in understanding “principles on which we can build more effective relationships and ministry within and beyond the boundaries of our homogenous churches and communities” (p. 15). This is crucial as the book lays out several of these principles in the latter part of the book, including the tensions created when cultures collide in regards to assumptions about time, events, tasks, and worldviews. Also, one of the most significant facts “about the incarnation is that Jesus was a learner” (p. 16). Leaders are learners, and in order to lead well, emerging leaders must have a lifelong learner attitude. Jesus typified this in the incarnation, and I would do well to model it to my emerging leaders.

What is the biggest tension that people in my context will face and how does this book address and equip them for ministry within this tension?

One of the main areas that we as Americans can grow in is the tension that is created with other cultures in regards to goals. Many times it is easy for us to value task orientation more than people orientation. People, like many of us in the U.S., find satisfaction in achievement, while, on the other hand, other cultures may find satisfaction in the interaction that a gathering of people affords (p. 79). As we equip our people for mission, we should equip them to realize the importance of interaction in daily life, especially when they will be crossing into other cultures who may have a much higher regard for personal interaction. “It is for task-oriented people to recognize that their striving after objective goals is a character flaw if the compulsion to work becomes obsessive” (p. 84). Yes, missional activity pushes us out of the nest to reach people for Christ, but “if we are not meeting people and loving them through interaction, we have lost sight of the Great Commission” (p. 84).

SUMMARY OR SYNTHESIS

Short and concise, this book is a helpful tool in not only diagnosing where potential cultural landmines may lie, but it also helps dismantle those landmines and turn them into assets for ministry. I appreciated the emphasis on the model for incarnation in Jesus, and the ministry of incarnation that we now fulfill. I am certainly a task-oriented person, so this book was a healthy reminder that “the life of Jesus furnishes powerful evidence of the importance of persons in the kingdom of God” (p. 85).

Book Review: Incarnational Ministry - Hiebert & Meneses

2007-06-21T21:29:00.000-05:00

“Our response to human cultures must be an ongoing process of critical contextualization” (Hiebert: 19). With these words in the introduction of the book, Hiebert casts the die of the mold for the heart of what this book addresses – critical contextualization, the different types of cultures, and how these affect Christian ministry. In playing a role in the advancement of the gospel, we have to make sure that we understand how we do what we do affects others, especially those in cultures different from our own. This book helps explain those differences and how we can adjust in order to not create more barriers for the gospel. We must see that “transforming a society is a process” (p. 19). My review of this book led me to ask the following questions:

What makes Urban Societies specifically unique?

Hiebert asserts that “the sheer size of modern cities makes it difficult for us to understand them” (p. 260). This gives rise to large and highly complex socio-cultural systems that can become difficult to understand. The key to this is to look at both the macro and micro level of social interaction. At the macro level is the city as a whole – its infrastructure, systems, etc. At the micro level is the peoples at the street level – groupings, families, interactions, etc. “We must constantly remind ourselves that cities are not a single, uniform organization” writes Hiebert (p. 262). Cities become the center of power, wealth, and economic and political interactions. They usually have a great diversity among ethnicities, classes and even the locations of where these diversities live. There is a greater need for specialization, hierarchy and change.

Hiebert also notes that relationships are vastly different as well. “Family and kinship groups… take new shapes under the pressure of the city,” sometimes splitting public and private life and even inadvertently emphasizing the nuclear over the extended family (p. 276). Mobility, individualism and freedom erode stability. Hiebert goes on to observe that “the dominant social structures of public life in cities are associations and institutions” (p. 279). These are all important observations especially as our church is located in the city, and has a desire to reach the city.

What does the church look like in an urban society?

Hiebert asks the question, “How can the church not only survive but also thrive in the city?” (p. 325). What was encouraging in reading this section of the book was that he notes that “the early church was an urban movement” (p. 325). Paul’s church planting and evangelism strategy was an urban one. Because of the diversity in cities, Hiebert makes a great observation about churches:

“One thing is clear. There will be no one form of church that serves as the model for all the others. There will be house churches, store-fronts, local congregations, and megachurches; ethnic churches and integrated churches; churches that stress high ritual order and those that emphasize informality. No one of them can serve the spiritual needs of all people.” (p. 328)

He notes that mobile people will have a more difficult time building the necessary community because “commuting prevents their members from developing the multiplex relationships necessary for intimate fellowship” (p. 334). This is important to know and appropriate for our context since our church is a “regional” church which pulls from people all over the city.

What is the role of incarnation in contextualizing the gospel?

The principle of incarnation is crucial in understanding how to truly contextualize the gospel. As Hiebert points out that “mission is more than a text. It must take flesh in human context” (p. 369). The revelation of God through His word must take on the unique attributes and qualities of the different peoples, languages and cultures. Hiebert notes that “we must incarnate our ministry in the contexts of the people we serve” (p. 370). This happens through both social and cultural contextualization. The goal of incarnation is transformation.

SUMMARY

Hiebert’s analysis of the many different facets of contextualizing the gospel as we seek to reach out to other cultures was helpful and fascinating. I have always enjoyed the depth and detail of Hiebert’s work, and this was a book I have not read before. It was enlightening to have his help in looking at the different opportunities and barriers that we face as we seek to be on mission with God to seek and save the lost.

Book Review: The Open Secret - Lesslie Newbigin

2007-06-10T22:46:00.000-05:00

Newbigin’s “introduction” wrestles with the vast and complex nature of the theology of mission, specifically in regards to the “missionary nature of the church” (p. 1). With the West having undergone, and still undergoing, such vast cultural and systemic shifts, he is understandably both engaging the shift through a trinitarian lens of how the church proper can engage the changing culture, but also how the church can engage in a holistic way. The dichotomy of justice verses conversion must change, he adds, and that the “first need” of these dichotomies “is for theological understanding” as well as a “restructuring of structures” (p. 11). He continues to assert this holistic perspective of mission by pointing out the implications of the confession of “Jesus as Lord.”

This confession, he adds,

“implies a commitment to make good that confession in relation to the whole life of the world – its philosophy, its culture, and it politics no less than the personal lives of its people. The Christian mission is thus to act out in the whole life of the whole world the confession that Jesus is Lord of all” (p. 17).

He then gives a framework for this Christian mission – a Trinitarian framework, no less. He looks through the lens of mission with three filters – “as proclaiming the kingdom of the Father, as sharing the life of the Son, and as bearing the witness of the Spirit” (p. 29).

The introduction really serves as an overview of the book’s seeming intent, so my review of this book led me to ask the following, more specific, questions about the Trinitarian nature of mission:

What does Newbigin mean by “mission as faith in action?”

Newbigin’s view of mission as faith in action is firmly rooted in the proclamation of the kingdom of the Father. “The announcement concerns the reign of God,” he states (p. 30). This faith is firmly rooted in the reign, or kingdom, of God. Interestingly enough, Newbigin points out that the “supreme deed by which the reign of God is both revealed and hidden, is the cross” (p. 35). He goes on to say that the proof for the cross as supreme act of kingdom victory, is the resurrection (p. 36). Newbigin asserts that “God is indeed active in history” (p. 39). But how is this activity manifest in regards to mission? He goes on to answer this important question when he says that God’s “action is hidden within what seems to be its opposite – suffering and tribulation for his people” (p. 39). It is by faith that we proclaim the reign of God, and it is by faith that we endure suffering for the sake of this reign, this kingdom. That is our mission.

What does Newbigin mean by “mission as love in action?”

What made the kingdom of God so relevant to the first century was the fact that the kingdom now had a face. “It now had a name and a face – the name and face of a man from Nazareth” (p. 40). This is the tangible expression of mission that Newbigin is explicating here, however obscure his observations seem to be. It was difficult to make the connection based on his material in this chapter for the case that mission is certainly love in action. There are instances in which he certainly makes the case for the presence of Jesus as the presence of the kingdom of God (p. 42), but it was still difficult to make specific inferences to the “presence of Jesus” as “presence of the Kingdom” perspective as a viable apologetic for love in action. At least Newbigin did not really make that clear enough as an argument. I can personally make those inferences, but I am stretching his stated words and conclusions. The best explanation of this love, however, comes from Newbigin in a later chapter when he says that “the church, by inviting all humankind to share in the mystery of the presence of the kingdom hidden in its life through its union with the crucified and risen life of Jesus, acts out the love of Jesus that took him to the cross” (p. 65).

What does Newbigin mean by “mission as hope in action?”

Concluding this Trinitarian perspective of mission is the view of mission as hope in action. This is a specific reference to the work and person of the Holy Spirit. Newbigin is quick to point out that it is “by an action of the sovereign Spirit of God that the church is launched on its mission” (p. 58). This grounds the mission of the church, according to Newbigin, in the sovereign activity of the Holy Spirit. But what does he mean by “hope in action?” He means that “by obediently following where the Spirit leads, often in ways neither planned, known, nor understood, the church acts out the hope that it is given by the presence of the Spirit who is the living foretaste of the kingdom” (p. 65). This is probably Newbigin’s best definition of hope in action.

SUMMARY

I have dealt specifically with Newbigin’s theological framework which is deeply embedded in the Trinitiarian perspective of mission as faith, love, and hope as a reflection of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In the ensuing chapters, Newbigin goes on to discuss the more practical problems and issues that arise out of this framework as the church does take hold of her missionary calling. He does this in part by dealing with the false separation of justice and preaching (p. 91), and by taking to task the church growth movement and its weaknesses (p. 121-124). As enlightening as these discussion are, they are out of the scope of this review, but are worth the read as practical handles for the implications of a Trinitarian perspective of mission.

Book Review: God's Missionary People - Charles Van Engen

2007-04-03T13:14:00.000-05:00

Van Engen’s thesis of the book states the reason for calling the local church God’s missionary people most succinctly: “…as local congregations are built up to reach out in mission to the world, they will become in fact what they already are by faith: God’s missionary people” (p. 17). The entire book lays out and supports this thesis, namely, that God’s people, the church, are by very nature a missionary people – founded by mission and existing for mission.

My review of this book has led me to pursue the following ideas, concepts and questions:

Why does Van Engen call the local church “God’s missionary people”?

Van Engen makes the point that the local church is in essence a band of missionaries, and that church and mission are interwoven. In fact, he quotes the International Missionary Council in saying that “…there is no participation in Christ without participation in his mission to the world” (p. 29). He continually makes this link by adding that “only as congregations intentionally live out their nature as the missionary people of God will the Church begin to emerge to become in fact what it is by faith” (p. 44).

He draws on Scripture to make the case for the link between church and mission, therefore making the Body of Christ, by nature, a missionary venture. In commenting on Acts 1:8 he poses this question:

Van Engen is intentional about drawing the line between the exclusivity of many other organizations, and the inclusiveness of the church. He goes on to say that,

“The Church is not an exclusive club of privilege, neither is it a place to rest from our labors. We have been brought in so that we can gather others into this Kingdom of grace.” (p. 56)

He also makes the case that our identification with historical and universal Christianity necessitates a belief in the interconnectedness of church and mission by the very fact that ‘universal’ implies mission by its very nature. He states that “by the very act of confessing our faith in ‘one holy catholic Church, the communion of saints,’ we intentionally and unavoidably commit ourselves to participate in God’s mission to the world.” (p. 57)

Van Engen goes on to posit that the nature and essence of the church cannot be separated or distinguished from mission itself, therefore supporting his claim that God’s people are a missionary people. At one point he poses this question and answer:

“What is the Church? It is the unifying, sanctifying, reconciling, and proclaiming activity of Jesus Christ in the world. Mission cannot be something separate from or added to the essence of the Church. The essential nature of the local congregation is, in and of itself, mission, or else the congregation is not really the Church.” (p. 70)

What does this book say it looks like for the local church to be God’s missionary people?

Van Engen articulates what it looks like for the local church to be God’s missionary people. Choosing to hover at the vision level, he doesn’t offer detailed and practical advice on what it looks like for a congregation to be moving towards a missional perspective, but he does give a good overview that can be fleshed out in a contextualized manner. He mentions several key indicators including love and fellowship / koinonia (p. 90-91), being for the world (p. 74), identification with the oppressed (p. 76), mission (p. 78), proclamation witness (p. 80), and yearning for numerical growth (p. 81). He also quotes W. Douglas Smith by mentioning the activity of a missionary people as being made up of “going, teaching, equipping, sending” (p. 42).

Confession and commission are seen as vital to the warp and woof of a missional congregation, and he notes that as Jesus’ disciples, we “cannot confess Jesus is Lord without at the same time proclaiming his lordship over all people. The implication of this intimate, inseparable connection between confession and commission is that the fulfilling of the commission to the world over which Christ is Lord is itself a mark of the missionary Church (see Phil. 2:9-11)” (p. 94). He also fleshes out what it looks like for this missionary congregation to fulfill its role as servant through witness, service and suffering (p. 95). As was noted, there cannot be detailed practices that can be immediately drawn out of Van Engen’s advice, but it would not take much to extrapolate golden gems of practice and patterns from this vision.

According to this book, how can we become God’s missionary people?

In order to become a missional people, Van Engen recommends that “the church becomes mission in following the Lord as an apostolic community that is… proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom…” (p. 78). It is in proclaiming and being a witness that the church can live out specifically its calling to be a missional people. Practically speaking, a congregation can incorporate missional goals and plans (p. 143-144), have a biblical perspective of the church as the people of God (not laity) (p. 152), identify and develop missional leaders (p. 166-176), and have missional administration (p. 178-180). According to Van Engen, these all work together to support the missional infrastructure needed for both the implementation and evaluation of the church as mission.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it best when he noted that “the church is the church only when it exists for others” (p. 74). This is most prominent when the church is engaged in mission, for being engaged in mission the church lives out its very nature and essence – the called out people of God calling out others to join them in the mission of God. Mission is both impetus and goal. And as Johannes Blauw rightly noted, “it is exactly by going outside itself that the church is itself…” (p. 79). Van Engen’s book was helpful in that he supported well his arguments both from a historical perspective and a biblical/theological perspective.

Heart Idols

2007-03-31T21:07:00.000-05:00

Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC, does such a great job of preaching in a way that uncovers the idols of my heart. I am really indebted to him for helping me see how the Gospel of the Kingdom is my greatest source of hope, joy and freedom. Here's a great outline from Keller from his blog that helps to identify the potential idols of the heart:

Idol: COMFORT (Privacy, lack of stress, freedom)
Price We Will Pay: Reduced productivity
Greatest Nightmare: Stress, demands
Others Often Feel: Hurt
Problem Emotion: Boredom Idol: APPROVAL (Affirmation, love, relationship)
Price We Will Pay: Less independence
Greatest Nightmare: Rejection
Others Often Feel: Smothered
Problem Emotion: Cowardice Idol: CONTROL (Self-discipline, certainty, standards)
Price We Will Pay: Loneliness; spontaneity
Greatest Nightmare: Uncertainty
Others Often Feel: Condemned
Problem Emotion: Worry Idol: POWER (Success, winning, influence)
Price We Will Pay: Burdened; responsibility
Greatest Nightmare: Humiliation
Others Often Feel: Used
Problem Emotion: Anger

I really identify with the idols of power and control. Maybe it's my competetive nature, or desire to succeed, but I have to be wary of that idol creeping up. Actually, I can see myself in all of those idols. Both Keller and J.I. Packer talk about the concept of "preaching the gospel to yourself." They got that idea from Richard Baxter, a Puritan pastor who taught the practice of "discoursive meditation," which simply means discoursing, or preaching, to yourself in meditation. I think it's an important practice in battling the idolatry of the heart.

What idols do you identify with?

Why community and mission aren't easy - pt. 5

2007-03-27T18:19:00.000-05:00

Let's continue looking at a barrier to missional community - individualism - and it's effect on mission:

James Smith notes that “modernity is characterized by a deep individualism that isolates us from one another, sealed up in our little egos or private spheres” (Smith 2006:56). Our primary identity, however, should be that of a covenant community. Inagrace Dietterich attests to what happens when we as a community do not utilize our prophetic voice in speaking out against this individualism:

“If the dualism of… private/public… is uncritically presupposed, the biblical images of the corporate nature of the Christian faith… and of its mission to proclaim and embody the new ‘society’ of the Kingdom of God will be profoundly undermined, distorted and misrepresented” (Hunsberger 1996:354)

Notice that Dietterich stated that the nature of the faith and the mission will be undermined. This is another way that individualism lures us away from missional community, namely, through the bifurcation of mission and community into two separate paradigms, two separate elements and two separate events.

In Transforming Mission, David Bosch points out that “it is the community that is the primary bearer of mission” (Bosch 1991:472). To separate mission from community and community from mission is to distort our communal identity. Even worse, it inherently assumes that mission can be accomplished alone.

Also, if the vehicle for mission is not community, then the support, encouragement, identity, and structure for mission quickly evaporates. And you are left at best with mission junkies who, with an individualistic (and hedonistic, I would say) perspective, jump from one missional event to the next without any kind of communal relationships, accountability, and support. At worst, this bifurcation of community and mission engenders apathy, thereby further deepening the alienation that occurs by virtue of individualistic isolation. Because of the Trinitarian nature of God, Darrell Johnson highlights the fact that “the three great disciplines of discipleship – worship, community, mission – cannot be separated, because they are grounded in the Trinity” (Johnson 2002:69).

Catch up on the "Why community and mission aren't easy" Series:

Bosch, David Jacobus. 1991. Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

Hunsberger, George R. and Van Gelder, Craig.1996. The Church Between Gospel and Culture: The Emerging Mission in North America. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Johnson, Darrell W. 2002. Experiencing The Trinity. Vancouver, BC: Regent College Publishing.

Smith, James K.A. 2006. Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard and Foucalt to Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group.

Why community and mission aren't easy - pt. 4

2007-03-19T08:00:00.000-05:00

Let's look again at an incredible barrier in the West to missional community - individualism. Christopher Kaiser is key here in understanding individualism, and therefore its ramifications. He gives us this definition:

“By ‘individualism,’ I do not mean self-reliance or independence of mind and action… What it means to be an individual is a matter of social definition – the definition of one’s self in relation to others…Traditional individuals understood themselves and related to others primarily as members of a group… Modern individuals will have none of this. We painstakingly differentiate ourselves from our families, our upbringings, and our job.

…the societal world… is perceived as something external, even alien, to us” (Hunsberger 1996:95,96)

With this kind of individualism comes an inherent sense of alienation from the communal. And alienation engenders isolation. James Smith notes that the “modernist isolationist understanding of the human self has often crept into the church” (Smith 2006:56). This individualism, and therefore growing sense of alienation, can greatly affect our context by luring us away from understanding and applying what it means to be a missional community. This creeping effect of individualistic isolation is a cancer to missional community.

But how should we respond?

Hunsberger, George R. and Van Gelder, Craig.1996. The Church Between Gospel and Culture: The Emerging Mission in North America. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Smith, James K.A. 2006. Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard and Foucalt to Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group.

Why community and mission aren't easy - pt. 3

2007-03-16T23:32:00.000-05:00

One way that individualism lures us away from missional community is through our own values and systems. The way that we cultivate the spiritual disciplines sometimes encourages individualism. I never, ever thought I would say that there is a hidden danger in encouraging people to have a daily, personal time of devotion to God that we call the “Quiet Time.” But if done at the exclusion of a communal experience of the spiritual disciplines, it can be distracting at best and detrimental to community at worst.

Wow... there, I said it. Christopher Kaiser notes that Modernity’s goal is the “relegation of the divine to private, inner experience” (Hunsberger 1996:83) at the expense of the public, corporate and, I would even say, the communal experience of God. Paul Heibert goes so far as to say that “Christianity in the West… has been privatized, relegated to personal piety” (Hunsberger 1996:147). When the pursuit of God becomes merely a privatized, inner pursuit, there is a part of community, and a value for community, that dies with that.

Heibert later asserts that the “erosion of the church from being a covenant community, along with its transformation into a crowd, club or corporation, has made Christianity a spectator sport or a business activity” (Hunsberger 1996:148-149). Far from being the inviting community of fellowship once described in the book of Acts, the privatization and individualization of Christianity has profoundly distorted our communal identity.

Hunsberger, George R. and Van Gelder, Craig.1996. The Church Between Gospel and Culture: The Emerging Mission in North America. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co.

technorati tags: missional, missional church
image: Reaching Out To Me - originally uploaded by Kevin Day

Victor Choudhrie blogging

2007-03-14T23:33:00.000-05:00

Victor Choudhrie, a Church Planting Movement guru, is blogging. This is one of the guys we in the West should listen closely to.

From his training website:

"Victor Choudhrie is a cancer surgeon by profession. He is a senior Fellow of the American and British colleges of surgeons. He quit his job as the Director (CEO) of the Christian Medical college, Ludhiana in Punjab, India in 1992 to take up full time Church planting ministry in central India. His wife Bindu is also in full time church planting ministry, equipping women to be house church leaders and trainers. God has blessed this ministry abundantly. Large numbers of grassroots level leaders have been trained who have planted thousands of house churches all over India as a result."

Shift Happens

2007-03-12T15:56:00.000-05:00

Don't let the cheesy powerpoint fascade fool you, the link below is a powerful collection of some of the global trends that will affect us most in the next few decades:

http://www.glumbert.com/media/shift

[ HT: Bob Roberts ]

Easy way to do justice globally

2007-03-06T20:55:00.000-06:00

Kiva is a non-profit company that connects micro-finances loans to the working poor around the globe. It's a great way to take a small amount of money and help others. Here's what they do:

We let you loan to the working poor
Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can "sponsor a business" and help the world's working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you've sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back.

We partner with organizations all over the world
Kiva partners with existing microfinance institutions. In doing so, we gain access to outstanding entrepreneurs from impoverished communities world-wide. Our partners are experts in choosing qualified borrowers. That said, they are usually short on funds. Through Kiva.org, our partners upload their borrower profiles directly to the site so you can lend to them.

How Kiva works:

Step 1: Choose a business
The businesses on our site are always changing. They are being uploaded by our microfinance partners around the world. You can find a new business on the home page or on the Businesses 'In Need' page.

Step 2: Make a loan
When you have selected a business, you can make a loan using your credit card (via PayPal). You can loan as little as $25 at a time. Checking out is easy and safe because of PayPal.

Step 3: Receive journals and payments
Periodically, you will hear back from the business you sponsor. Partner representatives (often loan officers) write directly to the website to keep you informed on the progress of the business. If you choose, you can receive these via email.

Step 4: Withdraw or re-loan
When your Kiva loan is repaid, you can choose to withdraw your funds or re-loan to a new business.

Connect with Kiva here...

Why community and mission aren't easy - pt. 2

2007-03-01T23:50:00.000-06:00

I recently took a survey of several leaders in our church and asked them to name what they think is the greatest barrier to community. Do you know what the overwhelming response was?

Individidualism.

The “autonomous self” is closer to home than I imagined. Extreme individualism has done more damage to community and mission than could ever be imagined. And in beheading community, we have inadvertently killed the means for justice and compassion. Yet the heart still yearns for justice…and community.

N.T. Wright, a modern-day C.S. Lewis and apologist for the gospel, recently wrote a book called Simply Christian. Meant in many ways to mimic the apologetic tour-de-force of Lewis’ Mere Christianity, Wright was intentional and strategic in how he planned the content of the book to address the concerns of the postmodern mind. And of all the subjects he could have chosen to begin his book, do you know which one he chose? The issue of justice.

Community and missional living are not just two separate “Christian events” in which we participate, they are Siamese twins. They are two inseparable values, two inextricable forces which were meant to be wed together. “And what God has joined together, let no man separate,” could be quoted here to express the importance of their union.

technorati tags: missional, missional church
image: Reaching Out To Me - originally uploaded by Kevin Day

Why community and mission aren't easy

2007-02-22T21:54:00.000-06:00

One way of defining missional living is this: as an active pursuit of the restoring of the shalom of God’s Kingdom personally, locally and globally through justice and compassion. Because modernity and postmodernity have riddled our Western context with values for the pursuit of self at the expense of community, the consumption for self at the expense of community, and the loss of identity of self in relation to community, we have been left without an anchor or foundation on which to base social justice.

Like Icharus soaring closer and closer to the sun, the Enlightenment began to raise the value of freedom to unsustainable heights. Freedom from religion, freedom from being controlled by institutions like the Church, freedom from the constraints of others. But this freedom was always held in check, in part, by the value for reason that Modernity espoused. Reason held sway over the excesses of freedom. As Modernity began to be challenged and collapse, Postmodernity continued the thread of freedom and autonomy without the constraint of reason. The damage was done. The dam of reason was permanently broken.

With the collapse of many of Modernity’s values came the collapse of Modernity’s meta-narrative. And now, instead of viewing life through a meta-narrative, Postmodernity views life through the narrative of “self” – an autonomous individual who is unique by virtue of existence. The Postmodern “self” is now free from the meta-narrative, free from the constraints of anything that does not fit into the “self’s” value system, which has been replaced by personal preferences. It is not difficult to imagine that the “we” and “us” that we are called to in Christian community is now a threat to my autonomy.

technorati tags: missional, missional church
image: Reaching Out To Me - originally uploaded by Kevin Day

Bob Roberts article in CT

2007-02-09T12:33:00.000-06:00

Big Brother Bob is at it again. This time CT has interviewed him about mission in today's world. Don't read it if you're comfortable with the insulated Christian sub-culture in America today.

Here's the article:

http://www.christianvisionproject.com/2007/01/we_arent_about_weekends.html

A few tasty quotes:

"The greatest tool for making disciples is getting people to engage the world."

"If you focus on mission, churches will follow, but if you focus on churches, mission often gets lost."

"The things I'm learning most about faith today are from Christians in the East. That's who I'm learning from."

"I'm learning that mission begins with Christology not ecclesiology. Following Jesus leads us to mission, which leads to churches gathering."

What must we learn and unlearn to be agents of God's mission in the world?

2007-01-20T13:46:00.000-06:00

That is the question that CT's Christian Vision Project is asking in this year's focus on the mission of God. Let me stop here and say this - you MUST read their most recent article from Chris Wright entitled An Upside Down World. It is a tour-de-force on global Christianity and the mission of God.

Warning: it will challenge you to think outside of the bubble, so don't read it if you like yourself. Here are a few quotes:

There are more Baptists in Congo than in Britain.

The old peripheries are now the center. The old centers are now on the periphery. Philip Jenkins brought this shift to popular attention in The Next Christendom.

[ see my Book Review of Jenkins' book ]

Can the West be re-evangelized? Only if we unlearn our default ethnocentric assumptions about "real" Christianity (our own) and unlearn our blindness to the ways Western Christianity is infected by cultural idolatry. It may be more blessed to give than to receive, but it is often harder to receive than to give.

That reverses the polarity of patron and client and makes us uncomfortably aware that what Jesus said to the Laodicean church might apply to us in the West: "You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked" (Rev. 3:17).

With the growth of the multinational church, mission is becoming multidirectional. The U.S. remains the largest single contributor of Protestant cross-cultural missionaries. But which country is the second largest? Not a Western nation, but India.

Mission today is from everywhere, to everywhere.

Perhaps what we most need to learn, since we so easily forget it, is that mission is and always has been God's before it becomes ours. The whole Bible presents a God of missional activity, from his purposeful, goal-oriented act of Creation to the completion of his cosmic mission in the redemption of the whole of Creation—a new heaven and a new earth. The Bible also presents to us humanity with a mission (to rule and care for the earth); Israel with a mission (to be the agent of God's blessing to all nations); Jesus with a mission (to embody and fulfill the mission of Israel, bringing blessing to the nations through bearing our sin on the Cross and anticipating the new Creation in his Resurrection); and the church with a mission (to participate with God in the ingathering of the nations in fulfillment of Old Testament Scriptures).

But behind all this stands God with a mission (the redemption of his whole Creation from the wreckage of human and Satanic evil). The mission of God is what fills the Bible from the brokenness of the nations in Genesis 11 to the healing of the nations in Revelation 21-22. So any mission activity to which we are called must be seen as humble participation in this vast sweep of the historical mission of God. All mission or missions that we initiate, or into which we invest our vocation, gifts, and energies, flows from the prior mission of God. God is on mission, and we, in that wonderful phrase of Paul, are "co-workers with God."

Not that there's much more to read, but you can continue reading here...

technorati tags: missional, missional church, missio dei, global christianity

The Missional Church - insights from Keller

2007-01-20T12:03:00.000-06:00

What does "missional church" really mean? CT just posted an article about the buzzword that it has become. Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Church in New York, offers some keen insights:

Characteristics of a Missional Church - In this promo video for the Desiring God Conference last year, Keller gives insights into the characteristics of a missional church:

Missional vs. Evangelistic church - In this video, Keller gives insights into the difference between an evangelistic and a missional church:

Missional vs. Seeker church - In this video, Keller gives insights into the difference between a seeker and a missional church:

technorati tags: missional church, Tim Keller

Lessons from my mentors

2007-01-13T21:30:00.000-06:00

You might not know their names, but I do. Names like John Bryson, James Arnold, Mel Sumrall, Kern White. Wes Crawford, Grant Edwards, Dave Furman, Jason Ford, Brian Albrecht. Even really old guys like Jonathan Edwards. They are men that have mentored me and given to me in some form or fashion, sharing their lives, wisdom, prayer, resources, insights, failures, support and connections. Sometimes they went out on a limb for me, and sometimes they just hung in there with me. But through good and bad they taught me more than I could ever relay.

Here are a few lessons (ok, a huge list) I've learned along the way through these men:

- Don’t be afraid of a good fight; healthy conflict can have good results

- Tell the truth no matter how much it hurts

- Live life sacrificially for others; if it doesn’t hurt it’s not a sacrifice

- Busy can be good at times

- Be tenacious and diligent

- Even small mentoring deposits can have long-lasting rewards and dividends

- Sleep when you’re dead

- You’re not done until God calls you home

- Make disciples wherever you are

- Give away whatever you have and have learned

- Go, go, go

- Model for others a life worth living

- Use your platform of influence to challenge others towards Christ-like living

- Love you wife openly and affectionately; talk highly about her

- Move people into your home so that you can disciple them more and better

- Never judge a person by one sermon.

- Leaders can have a lasting influence for generations

- Love God with your mind – think hard and long about God

- You can be intelligent and passionate about Christ

- Write – it is a great way to leave a legacy that lasts for generations

- Be a friend

- Listen well

- Encourage when you can

- Be passionate about the Scriptures

- Dig deep into God’s word for guidance, insight, direction, and inspiration

- Quantity time equals quality time; the more time you spend with a mentoree the better

- Challenge mentorees to use their God-given talents for the Kingdom and they will

- Ask for help, you never know how it might empower a young leader

- Model a missional life and others will follow

- Seek to empower, not to control

- Release young leaders into ministry

- Give away responsibilities in a way that empowers

- Strive to get loyalty first and you will neither get loyalty nor empower others; strive to empower others first and you will both get loyalty and empower others

- Be authentic and transparent about struggles

- Bring people into the mess with you and they will help you

- Build teams, not structure first; structure follows team

- Believe in younger leaders

- Look for the faithful, available and teachable

- Share your life with your mentorees

- Try new things

- Don’t get caught up in the details, unless you need to get caught up in the details

- Challenge the status quo

- Equip and develop, don’t just do events

- Make big asks of high-potential leaders

- Be patient with young leaders – they might actually do some good some day

- Keep your cool under pressure

- Leadership is more like ju-jitsu than karate – better to redirect current motion than try to stop it altogether

- You can take current motion and use it to your advantage

- In developing others, you can’t steer a parked car

- Balance ministry and family – err on the side of spending time with your family

- Equip and resource, in that order

- Submit to authority

- Every organization has a culture. Know it and use it to your advantage.

- Choose your battles carefully – you don’t have 9 lives in ministry.

- Don’t take ministry too seriously sometimes

- Strategic planning is just that – strategic

- Give credit to others where credit is due

- Just listen. That alone can be therapeutic for the other person.

- Give timely advice when necessary

- Have friends that you trust when you’re in a high-octane and performance-oriented environment

- If you spot an emerging leader, do something about it. Give them something to do. Invite them into your circle. Increase their platform.

- Give yourself to an emerging leader and they will give themselves to you.

- A little enthusiasm goes a long way.

- Encourage a vision and you will reap a dream

- Use your platform to give others a platform of leadership

worldview and missional church

2007-01-12T19:39:00.000-06:00

My global leadership cohort is going through a course right now called "Contemporary Culture in Missiological Perspective." That's a fancy way of telling us that we're going to learn something along the lines of this: that there are very good reasons why we should be looking at our American (and Western) culture as if we're missionaries. We can't just assume that everyone has the same worldview, or that Christianity is still the dominant worldview and system of values. That has HUGE implications.

I mean, think about the missionary analogy. Bob Roberts, Jr. asks a great question in his book, Transformation - What if the Church were the missionary? Wow, what a piercing question laden with implications. We aren't in Christendom any more, nor are we in Kansas any more, Toto. We no longer have home court advantage. So we have to take the perspective of missionaries - learn (or in our case, re-learn) the language, the stories, the customs, the values, the communication, of our culture. We have to utilize all those as newfound avenues to the gospel.

So here's a few of my miniscule thoughts on worldview:

I'm always surprised whenever I look at the Western cultural values and how they have been absorbed into the church and also my own value system. I am a child of my culture, and that is never so clear as when I look I look at the differences between the two. I'm an individualist, an isolationist, a consumerist, and I find that the idolatry of power is not fully dead in my heart just yet. Nietzsche would be proud.

The Western worldview is individualistic, isolationistic and consumeristic. The Biblical worldview, by contrast, is communal, missional and sacrificial. There are distinct similarities between the Western worldview and the church, unfortunately. The Western church views salvation, community and mission strictly in terms of it's individualistic view, and emphasizes the individual and his/her needs in all of this. Also, the church's structures, values and mission have been co-opted by Western culture. The Western culture, in it's worship of power, values hierarchical structures and ascent by means of upward mobility. This is all too familiar in the Western church. The Western culture values prosperity in it's pursuit of autonomy (and isolation). The church has also absorbed these values, along with individualism, and many times turns God's promises into a cosmic lottery where the jackpot is upward mobility socially and socio-economically.

technorati tags: missional church, worldview, missiology

Lessons from a 2-year-old

2007-01-08T09:07:00.000-06:00

A few months ago my wife and I gave our 2-year-old, Wesley Grant, a batman pajama set. It was kinda one of those bedtime bribes that parents sometimes have to do for their kids. “Hey, you can wear this if you go to bed…” Well, make a mental note: never give a child, especially one who doesn’t fully understand the laws of gravity, and who actually deliberately ignores the laws of gravity, a pajama set that glorifies superhuman capabilities. So my 2-year-old decides to test his superhuman abilities – flight, no less, and attempts to jump off the couch. Instead of soaring around the room and landing on his feet like all action heroes do, he planted his forehead squarely in the middle of the edge of the coffee table.

Bad deal. Big gash. Lots of blood.

Of course I was away at a meeting, and so by the time I got home it was a madhouse. My wife had called the paramedics, who arrived about 2 minutes after I did.

So we went to the hospital and waited. Then they took us to a back room and a doctor came in and looked at Wesley Grant’s head wound. “Yep, it’s gonna need about 6 stitches.” She told us that she’d be back with a “papoose” in about 15 minutes to get started on the stitches.

So I got this mental image of this “papoose” with like a dainty mother walking through a wheat field with this soft cloth “papoose”, gently swaddling her giggling child in her arms.

Nope, wrong papoose. They came in about 15 minutes later with the “real” papoose. A 4 ft. long 2x4 with about 14 layers of large, heavy-duty Velcro straps. They strapped my superhero, head-wound boy into this “thing” that could only be explained as a restraining device for escaped convicts, and wrapped him up like a tight burrito. He was stuck, even though it took 4 of us to hold him down after he was strapped in.

And as he was completely and totally immobilized, wounded, scared, struggling and crying, and all he could say was, “Daddy, help!” “Daddy, help!” “Daddy, help!”

All he could do was urgently plead for his father to do something. His toys didn’t matter. His food didn’t matter. His stuff didn’t matter. This child’s only recourse was that his father would do something. And let me tell you something as a father – if it was in my plan and for his good, I would have moved heaven and earth to answer his urgent plea. His urgency alone would have moved my heart to raise up and answer his plea.

Luke 10:2 - “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few, therefore beseech (ask, pray, implore, urgently plead, beg) the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” Urgently plead for your Heavenly Father to do something.

Book Review: Cultivating a Life for God - Neil Cole

2006-12-27T21:34:00.000-06:00

I just finished a book by Neil Cole called Cultivating a Life for God. It was a short read with a ton of great insights. Cole has a way of turning a phrase, as well as restating the basics of Christianity in a way that is fresh and insightful. The subtitle of this book is this: Multiplying Disciples Through Life Transformation Groups. He basically lays out a vision and strategy for discipleship that is simple, reproducible and transferable. It focuses on multiplication without being overbearing, as well as helps instill a value for the greatness of God's word without being legalistic. I would whole-heartedly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a simple and effective tool for making disciples that reproduce.

Here are a few of the more memorable parts of the book:

- We cannot cause the growth, only release it. (p. 23)

- Strong disciples make a strong church. Growing disciples make a growing church. (p. 28)

- If disciple-making and multiplying is essential for all, we must find a way to make it available to all so that it can be passed from generation to generation. (p. 33)

- Not all Christians are meant to be leaders, but all are meant to be reproducing disciple-makers. (p. 33)

- When we approach disciple-making, wanting to pass the baton on to succeeding generations, we must refine the process so that it is simple and transferable. (p. 35)

- By combining discipleship with leadership development we eliminate a good percentage of Christians from participation in the Great Commission. (p. 36)

- The church is suffering from a bottleneck of teaching without obedience. (p. 36)

- A second logistical advantage to a group of two or three is that they can meet almost anywhere. (p. 51)

- If we cannot see multiplication at this level (groups of two and three), we will not see it at higher, more complex levels of church life. (p. 51)

- ...I could not find a single verse in all the Bible which commands us to plant and multiply churches. It's just not there! The command that God gave us was to make and multiply disciples, not cell groups or churches. Jesus does want to build His kingdom through church planting and multiplication, but His plan is to do so by multiplying disciples. (p. 52)

- Because the system (of groups of 2 or 3) is simple enough to pass on with one easy description the flame spreads unhindered. Ordinary Christians are empowered to do the most important work any of us can do. (p. 94)

- It is true the the Life Transformation Group system has a high commitment level for a ground floor entry point to the church. Many, if not most, church growth philosophies today try to lower the level of commitment up front so as to attract more people and hopefully woo them into Christianity gradually... When Jesus spoke of an entry point unto salvation and the kingdom of God, He didn't attempt to lower the standard so that more could enter in, He did the very opposite. He said, "If anyone wishes to come after Me let him deny himself, pick up his cross and follow me. He who wishes to save his life shall lose it, and he who is willing to lose his life for my sake, and for the gospel's sake shall keep it." (p. 97)

technorati tags: discipleship, Neil Cole, transformation, missional church

reading and community

2006-12-17T16:25:00.000-06:00

I've been reading like a dog lately trying to get my head around community, groups, small groups, cell groups, house churches, cell churches, and every other type of missional community that is out there. I think the phrase missional community is the best way that I can lump all the iterations of the before-mentioned groups. So, feel free to peruse the newly minted list of books on your right - just scroll down near the bottom and you'll see the first couple of lists under the "current reading" section.

Any books or resources you would recommend on "missional community" (as I call it) would be greatly appreciated.

Is there anything not on the list that you think is a must-read? (C'mon, I know that there are a few "experts" on community out there - you seminary profs and students, missionaries, practitioners, and pastors are out there... tell me your ideas and suggestions...)

a good laugh...

2006-12-07T20:33:00.000-06:00

This picture of my kiddos just makes me laugh...

What kind of mentor are you?

2006-12-06T14:33:00.000-06:00

What kind of mentor are you?

We all mentor... at all times. Sometimes we are intentional. Sometimes not. But at all times we are mentoring, passing on to others our values, passions, knowledge, skills and resources. In moving from unintentional mentoring to intentional mentoring it is so important to understand and develop the kind of mentor God has created us to be.

Look at this list and see which mentor type* you are:

:: Active Mentoring ::

- Dicipler: enabler in the basic of following Christ (i.e. prayer, the Word, community, ministry, doctrines, etc.)

- Spiritual Guide: provides accountability, drection and insight for decision making; deals with inner-growth issues, appraises a person's spirituality, seeks to create internal spiritual motivation, desires to deepen the believer's spiritual maturity level

- Coach: provides motivation, skills, and application needed to meet a task; guides a skill-focused relationship, shares specific areas of expertise, focuses on obedience and responsibility

:: Occasional Mentoring ::

- Counselor: offers timely advice on viewing self, others, circumstances and ministry; provides perspective for emerging leaders, provides stimulus towards potential

- Teacher: knowledge and understanding of a particular subject; provides motivation towards learning, focuses on integration of theory and practice

- Sponsor: provides career guidance and development within an organization; influences others, advocates for the mentoree, networks resources to facilitate development, desire to accelerate leadership development of mentoree

:: Passive Mentoring ::

- Contemporary Model: a living, personal model who inspires emulation

- Historical Model: a past life that teaches dynamic principles

- Divine Contact: a timely and divine intervention of guidance or discernment

So which one are you? Comment below and let me know...

*adapted from Bobby Clinton's 9 types of mentoring relationships in the book, Spiritual Mentoring by Anderson and Reese

Matt Carter blog

2006-12-02T16:21:00.000-06:00

My friend, partner-in-crime, and lead pastor at the Austin Stone, Matt Carter, is blogging. His sermons are also being podcast. Check it out...

Want to be a good ministry coach?

2006-11-25T15:12:00.000-06:00

I'm right in the middle of a Master's in Global Leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary, so I'm wrapping up a course on Mentoring in the next couple of weeks. It has been an incredible course that has given me some very practical helps on mentoring and leadership.

If you're like me, then you probably had this grand idea of mentoring, that it involved sitting at the feet of a life-guru, and that in order to be one you had to have a good grasp on just about anything and everything pertaining to life, growth and leadership. This is just not true. There are several types of mentors - some are disciplers, some are spiritual guides, some are coaches, some are teachers, some are counselors, some are teachers, some are sponsors, and some are models.

There's no such thing as one mentor who embodies all of these abilities. And that's OK. I don't need to look for that, and, thank God, I don't need to BE that in order to be a mentor.

The best advice I received from this class was this - figure out what kind of mentor you are and develop yourself in that area.

If you're a teacher-mentor, then, by-golly, be the best dang teacher-mentor out there. (By the way, the course gives TONS of practical helps on being a teacher-mentor. And it gives tons of practical helps on developing your specific mentor type, whether that's teacher, counselor, discipler, coach, etc.) If you're a discipler-mentor, then be the best discipler-mentor that you can be. Develop yourself in that area. Master that kind of mentoring. Know your tools and have them readily accessible. Pass on anything and everything you receive.

One specific type of mentoring is coaching. Here are 8 insights I gained from the section on coaching:

1. Coaches have a process for developing and mentoring leaders - demonstrate, debrief, do and release.

2. There are 7 kinds of spiritual and ministry skills that coaches model and develop in others: disciplinary, relational, group, organizational, word, prayer, and persuasion.

3. The 4 empowerment functions of a coach include imparting skills, imparting confidence, motivating and stretching a person, and modeling the importance of learning and knowing the basics.

4. Coaches can improve their mentoring by identifying their skills, recognizing the components of those skills, and how they can be taught to others.

5. Coaches can improve their mentoring by taking apprentices with them as they demonstrate a skill, then debriefing with that apprentice after the fact.

6. Coaches are recruiters who look for talent. They want to attract that talent and then develop it.

7. Coaches will be most likely use the expectation principle with great power: people have a tendency to try and live up to the genuine expectations of those they admire and respect.

8. Coaches are practical in nature. They like to show other how things work and how to do it.

Want to read more on the subject of mentoring? Check out these books:

Connecting: The Mentoring Relationships You Need To Succeed In Life by Clinton & Stanley

The Mentor Handbook: Detailed Guidelines and Helps for Christian Mentors and Mentorees by Clinton & Clinton

Spiritual Mentoring: A Guide for Seeking and Giving Direction by Reese & Anderson

technorati tags: mentoring, coaching, leadership

blog redesign

2006-11-17T18:45:00.000-06:00

no, your eyes are not deceiving you... I have changed the color design on the blog to shake things up a little. tell me what you think...

the new church movement?

2006-11-14T09:27:00.000-06:00

Check out this video about the burgeoning simple church movement in the West and tell me what you think:

http://www.h2hfiles.info/interviews.mov

the continuing saga

2006-11-10T22:05:00.000-06:00

I've been out of the blogging saddle for a couple of weeks now. The transition to Austin has been going well, although Kimberly and I both have experienced a real sense of spiritual oppression as we've made this transition. I've been in a lot of countries where there is a real sense of the darkness of idolatry and the depravity of man, but I have never sensed oppression like this before. I feel like we've been walking targets. I've been getting up crazy early, not because I'm pious, but because I'm desperate... desperate for God in this oppression... desperate for God to reign in my life and move in ways that can only be attributed to Him.

God has still been confirming the transition, though. We've had a couple of meetings with the guys on staff at the church where we've really wrestled through what true discipleship looks like and why the American church, on the whole, has done a terrible job of producing committed, radical, missional, prayer-besotted, passionate disciples of Jesus Christ. The first part to solution is naming the problem. We're all "rich, young rulers" who have no need of the King of Glory because we're too easily satisfied by the metal and plastic toys of our age.

Because of this and other things, I've really been wrestling about the direction of the ministry I've been encharged to lead. I'm just not satisfied with current Western paradigms of doing minsitry. Come and see, invest and invite, bring 'em to an event... that just doesn't rev my strategic engine anymore. Why do we think that events are what change people's lives?

I'm enamored with what God is doing around the world, though. A church planting movement in a province in India which was once called the "graveyard of missions" is now exploding with people coming to Christ - 1.5 million over the last 10 years to be exact. 30,000 church plants later and they have a real, live revival on their hands. Here's the crazy thing - there's no secrets to their strategy.

Guess what they do? They pray like crazy. They share Christ with anything that moves. They cling to God's Word as completely and universally authoritative. They reproduce themselves in others - immediately and rapidly. They don't have buildings, outside money, or staff. They don't have slick events. They teach everyone, and I mean everyone, to plant churches. And they are some of the most committed and passionate people you will ever meet on the face of the planet. They understand the they have one shot at life, that life is short and unpredictable, that some of their friends will proabably die for their faith, that they will definitely incur persecution, that they have been left on planet earth to do some damage for the Kingdom, and that they will go down swinging.

Now, contrast this with your typical Western Christian. We pray when we feel like it, or only if we get into some sort of crisis. We read God's word like it's a newspaper. It might take us 10 years to ever feel "good enough" to sit down and mentor someone. We have plenty of buildings, tons of cash and great big staffs. We love slick events. We think church planting is for the few, the proud, the professional. And we get upset if, God forbid, someone challenges to do something other than pray, pay and get out of the way. We believe that we will all live to be approximately 85 years of age, that life is long and predictable (if you can make enough money), that dying for your faith is something that happened 1900 years ago - but not today, that persecution means having Nancy Pelosi as a national leader, that we have been left on the planet to accumulate as much wealth and stuff as possible, and that we will go down swinging - on the front porch of our assisted living home while sipping lemonade and singing Gaither hymns.

Maybe it will take the church of the Global South (Asia, Africa, Latin America) to shame us into waking up to the reality that our King will return and He won't look like the "gentle Jesus, meek and mild" that we all talk about. He will come in triumph. He will come with a sword. He's going to kick some @$*. And in the meantime we are to have the same mentality, taking nothing for granted, provoking our minds to action, and living as if the "reality" and stuff we see each day in the West is really going to be nothing more in the end than Kingsford charcoal brickettes and lighter fluid.

Austin, Texas

2006-10-22T16:15:00.000-05:00

We're now settled in Austin, Texas... The transition was as smooth as can be, although I went through World Wide Web withdrawal. I like staying plugged in to what's going on and blogging, in the words of 50 Cent, "like a fat kid loves cake."

We were introduced at the church today, and then, as if on cue, someone secretely replaced my 2-year-old boy with a temper-tantrum throwing meltdown boy. Nothing a little, or long, nap won't solve, of course.

we're here... we're excited... we already feel very supported and encouraged.

the simplicity of community

2006-10-02T12:12:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about community lately. What it is... what it isn't. What it should be... what it's not supposed to be. How great it could be... how hard it is. A lot of ideas, thoughts, images, metaphors and stories just flying through my mind. But one thing that keeps sticking with me is the simplicity of community. Community is not brain surgery. Community is not rocket science. Community can (and does) happen with all types of folks with all types of backgrounds. It can happen in the blink of an eye or it can take years to cultivate. But it is simple. It is the sharing of life.

I've been reading a lot and thinking through how we build community, or, better yet, how community builds itself. Randy Frazee said something about the simplicity of community that was like an arrow through my heart:

The richest conversations you will ever have in your life you cannot orchestrate. They will just sneak up on you. And you want to be there when they happen. You can't orchestrate them, but you want to be together enough so that when it does emerge you will be there.

I still need to mull over that one.

What's been your experience with community? Do you remember a time of rich, deep relationships in your life? What contributed to that experience?

Subverting my own instincts

2006-09-27T13:22:00.000-05:00

We're moving to Austin, which means we have to find a new place to live. We wrestled through all the normal options - house or apartment? rent or buy? in town or out of town? Honestly, I think I'd rather be sitting in a dentist's chair with a dull drill in my mouth than look for houses and apartments. So we finally narrowed it down to renting an apartment... so that we could get to know Austin, and most of all get to know new friends. And that way we could make a wise and informed decision about the future.

So I started looking... and looking... and looking. I've looked at so many floorplans, and square footage, and landscapes, and amenities, and kitchens, and living rooms... I thoroughly analyzed EVERYTHING...

Everything, except for my motivation.

Do you know what was motivating me? Most space for the least amount of money. Sounds inocuous, right? It doesn't matter where you live just as long as you can get the best deal. The "how much" drives all the other factors. It's all about the good deal. It's all about how much space I can consume for the lowest cost.

And then it hit me. You are such a consumer. That's your grid. That's your ideology. That's your instinct.

So now I'm in the process of subverting my own instincts. I'm rethinking my motivation and my paradigm. Is consuming what it is all about? I don't think so. But I've got to retrain myself to have a different grid. One that better reflects the heart of God the giver, not me the consumer.

new season

2006-09-22T11:42:00.000-05:00

We've got change and transition on the horizon. We will be moving to Austin, Texas to join the staff of the Austin Stone Community Church. This is an exciting transition for us... more details to come later about all that it entails. I will still be blogging, although pretty spotty over the next few weeks.

As a family, we've really been going through a paradigm shift. We've really been wrestling through what it means to live in community, to be strategic neighbors, to simplify our lives for the sake of relationships, and to live in a way that subverts individualism, isolationism and consumerism that is so rampant in our Western culture. More on this as well... later...

Another shift that's happening personally... God has created me to be a passionate person. I get so fired up about Christ, theology, living missionally, anything having to do with redemption (hence the name of this blog - "exagorazo" - one of the New Testament Greek words for redemption...) God has just made me to be a passionate person about the big things in life. I feel like I am beginning to recover some of those passions, and am excited about how God will both channel those and align those with this next season of life. More on this later...

We would appreciate your prayers as we transition rather rapidly into this next phase of ministry...

stew

blog break

2006-09-05T11:12:00.000-05:00

I've been taking a little break from blogging lately, and will continue to take this break for the next few days or weeks. In the meantime, you may want to enjoy some of the most popular links on this blog:

What missional North Americans need to read

Missional Church series

Wow, that's pretty narcissistic self-referencing there... Here are some sites/articles that you may find interesting as well:

Gospel and Our Culture Network
(it's been updated for your enjoyment...)

Missiology.org

poverty, children, stats & Memphis

2006-08-23T08:32:00.000-05:00

My family and I live in the inner-city of Memphis, which among with other less-then-admirable monikers, has won the less than prestigious honor of being the second most segregated city in the US. Living in the inner-city certainly comes with its own difficulties and problems. But what makes it most difficult is the seemingly undending tide of systemic problems that plague, of all groups, the children that grow up in this environment. I recently ran across these statistics from the Urban Child Institute. Please bear with all the numbers, because the result is telling:

- 1 in 4 Memphians are under 18. One in 10 are under 5.

- In 2004, Memphis had a population of 628,000, including 165,000 children under the age of 18. 51,000 children are under age 5.3 in 4 children in Memphis are Black and 1 in 5 are White. 3 percent of children are Hispanic and 1 percent are Asian.

- 1 in 5 families in Memphis live on less than $8,700 a year. 2 in 5 live on less than $19,000 a year. In 2006, the federal poverty line for a family of two was $13,200; for a family of three it was $16,600; for a family of four it was $20,000. The actual amount needed to support a family is closer to twice this income.

- 2 in 5 children in Memphis live in poverty, 3 in 5 are low-income.

- Child poverty in Memphis is twice the national child poverty rate, and substantially higher than the poverty rate for children in Tennessee (19 percent).

- One of every two children in Memphis lives in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty (where 1 in 5 families lives in poverty).

- 2 in 5 (43.6 percent) children in Memphis live with a single parent.

- In 2002, 2 out of 3 (64.4 percent) children in the city were born to single mothers.

- 15.6 percent of children in Memphis live with another relative, most often grandparents.

- In Memphis, married couples earn three times as much as single mothers.

- The median income of married-couples in Memphis is $52,666. The median income for a single mother in Memphis is $18,029.

- In Memphis, children raised by single mothers are five times as likely to live in poverty than children raised by married parents.

- 1 in 5 single mothers in Memphis have less than a high school diploma, and the majority of single mothers (58 percent) have a high school degree or less.

- More than half of all children in Memphis start life in families made vulnerable by poverty. These children will hear fewer words - and will receive less praise - than their middle income peers. They are 3 times more likely to be uprooted from their homes each year, have fewer books in the home and are less likely to be read to. It is no wonder that they are much less likely to reach school ready to learn.

- Children in Memphis score in the 20th percentile on national tests of kindergarten readiness, and achievement gaps between students from low and middle-income families grow wider through the school years.

Fewer words, less praise, stinging poverty, fewer books, less likely to read, single-parent households... What will it take to bring shalom, peace, the universal flourishing of all things, to this environment?

Can we stop talking now about how "they" need to just go out and get a job? How if "they" will just pull themselves up by their bootstraps "they" can live out the American dream? Can we look more at what it will take to bring about the spiritual, physical, emotional and psychological flourshing that comes as a fruit of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

What I'm talking about is more than just social justice. And its more than having a "Gospel paratrooper" mentality where you just drop in, share the gospel, and leave. It's something altogether different. It's humbling ourselves, like Jesus did, and entering into broken systems, broken environments and broken people for the redemption of the whole thing. Not just the redemption of a spiritual part. Not just the redemption of a physical part. And not just the redemption of an emotional part. It means not being satisfied until we are involved with Jesus in redeeming every part... yes, the whole thing.

Image: Hope for the Sun originally uploaded by Shavar

technorati tags: missional, poverty, inner-city, Memphis, children, shalom, missional church

reality of parenting

2006-08-22T10:04:00.000-05:00

My wife has a great post on the reality of parenting...

Friday Foto

2006-08-18T14:41:00.000-05:00

my angel
Friday Photo Group

meter
Friday Photo Group

my del.ici.ous - city edition

2006-08-09T15:57:00.000-05:00

Here's a little peak at my del.ici.ous tags, the city edition. This is just the Top 10:

technorati tags: cities, church planting

Puritan Quote of the Week

2006-08-09T11:49:00.000-05:00

"Christ is the most tender-hearted physician. He hath ended his passion but not his compassion. He is not more full of skill than sympathy, 'He healed the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds' (Psalm 147:3). Every groan of the patient goes to the heart of the physician."

THOMAS WATSON

HT: Fire and Ice

Friday Foto

2006-08-04T16:12:00.000-05:00

Pure
Friday Photo Group

Suburban churches sucking the life out of a small town

2006-07-31T10:56:00.000-05:00

I don't usually post entire articles, but this was too much of a commentary on the suburban church mentality of taking without giving back. In a nutshell the town of Stafford, TX is being put out of business because they can't afford to have more non-profits (churches, etc.) sucking up land and not giving back any revenue to the city. Churches are 501(c)3 organizations, which means that they don't have to pay taxes. So the city can't afford to pay for police, fire, etc.

What's most interesting is that the members of the churches don't even live in Stafford! So, not only does the city have to accomodate the churches, they also don't get any benefit from having members of the churches living in the city.

Where is the idea of "shalom" in all this? Where is the concept of "seeking the welfare (peace, prosperity) of the city?" (Jeremiah 29) Why do churches think that they can just rape and pillage resources in order to build their empires? Why don't more churches have a value for being a blessing to their neighborhoods, communities, and cities?

I'm not saying that the central goal here is to help this city make some money. But it is sad that a community like this cannot even sustain its own infrastructure because of the unintended, yet powerful, affects of the self-absorbed decisions of commuter, suburban churches. How can these churches teach and equip their people for sustainable and reproducible mission/blessing in their neighborhoods when the churches themselves cannot live out sustainable and reproducible mission/blessing in their own neighborhood?

2 of my favorite quotes:

"If you can't find religion in Stafford, Texas, you ain't looking hard enough."

Willis said he asked the last six applicants why they wanted to build a church in Stafford. "Every one of them said they prayed about it, and God said to come here," he said. "I can't compete with that, so here we are."

Churches Putting Town Out of Business

Stafford, Texas, has 51 tax-exempt religious institutions and wants no more: `Somebody's got to pay for police, fire and schools.'

By Lianne Hart, L.A. Times Staff Writer
July 31, 2006

STAFFORD, Texas - They are not the words one expects to hear from a politician or a Southerner, and Leonard Scarcella is both: "Our city has an excessive number of churches."

Scarcella is mayor of this Houston-area community, which has 51 churches and other religious institutions packed into its 7 square miles.

With some 300 undeveloped, potentially revenue-producing acres left in Stafford, officials are scrambling to find a legal way to keep more tax-exempt churches from building here.

"With federal laws, you can't just say, 'We're not going to have any more churches,' " Scarcella said. "We respect the Constitution, but 51 of anything is too much."

Stafford, population 19,227, is the largest city in Texas without a property tax, and it depends on sales taxes and business fees for revenue. Nonprofits have been attracted by its rapid growth and minimal deed restrictions. "It's thrown everything out of balance, plus providing zero revenue. Somebody's got to pay for police, fire and schools," City Councilman Cecil Willis said.

In 2003, around the time the 45th church settled in, city leaders began looking for a way to slow the pace of construction. Public meetings were held; "we had people of different religions attending, people in their religious garb, Buddhists in their orange gowns and whatever else, talking about this very openly," Scarcella said.

An ordinance eventually passed that required those who wanted to build a church - and other public gathering places, such as bowling alleys and community halls - to undergo a rigorous review process and obtain City Council approval.

Before the ordinance, "you could pretty much come in here and say, 'I want to open up a church,' and I'd say, 'OK,' " said Gene Bane, the city's director of building permits.

In his office is a large map of Stafford that is dotted with round yellow stickers, each dot denoting a church or religious facility. In some parts of town, the dots are so close together they nearly meld into a big yellow glob.

In one quarter-mile section near the city center, parishioners can choose among 17 churches. There are three small churches in the Quail Ridge Plaza shopping center, and three large brick churches on the street behind it. Down the road, the Evangelical Formosan Church is tucked behind a muffler shop.

"If you can't find religion in Stafford, Texas, you ain't looking hard enough," Bane said.

There are no synagogues in Stafford, but there are religious facilities for Buddhists, Muslims, Chinese Baptists, Filipino Baptists, Spanish-speaking Baptists, and "every other variety of Christian you can imagine," Scarcella said.

"As best as we've been able to determine, the overwhelming majority of people who attend here don't even live in Stafford; they're coming from everywhere else," Willis said. Elsewhere includes Houston, about 15 miles northeast, and nearby Sugar Land.

"I don't hate God. I'm not against America and apple pie," Willis said. "We just have to protect what's left for commercial development."

Lawyers researching ways to stop church growth here will report back to city leaders in about six weeks, Scarcella said.

Lola Onita, assistant pastor at Jesus House Texas, said churches should be allowed to spread unfettered in a country that respects religious freedom. "People need a place to worship and hear the word of God," she said.

But Nilda Martinez, who owns a flower shop between two churches, has had enough. "The churches, they're everywhere here," she said. "There are too many; the city should control it. It hurts the city when you don't have enough businesses paying taxes."

Willis said he asked the last six applicants why they wanted to build a church in Stafford. "Every one of them said they prayed about it, and God said to come here," he said. "I can't compete with that, so here we are."

technorati tags: missional church, missional, suburban church

Friday Foto

2006-07-28T17:56:00.000-05:00

La Seo
Friday Photo Group

What missional North Americans need to read

2006-07-24T22:24:00.000-05:00

If you're North American, or from the West, you need to read this article in CT:

Experiencing Life at the Margins
An African bishop tells North American Christians the most helpful gospel-thing they can do.
Interview by Andy Crouch
If you want to ask the Rt. Rev. Dr. David Zac Niringiye what's new in his ministry, allow some extra time. As assistant bishop of Kampala in the Church of Uganda, Zac oversees churches that are enjoying tremendous growth and confronting pressing needs. He and his wife, Theodora, counsel Ugandans who have suffered the trauma of war, advise startup businesses throughout Africa, and nurture Christian student movements and evangelistic efforts. His contributions to spiritual and cultural renewal in Africa alone would make him a valuable respondent to our big question:
How can followers of Christ be a counterculture for the common good?
But Zac, a protege of evangelical leader John Stott, also has cultivated deep relationships with Christians in the West, beginning with theological studies at Wheaton and Edinburgh. As a senior adviser to Geneva Global-another product of Stott's far-flung network of students and friends-Zac is creating international partnerships that model the candid challenge he offers to American Christians in this interview.
[ read more... ]

[ HT: Dan Sheffield ]
technorati tags: missional church, missional

Missional Church + technorati

2006-07-20T19:05:00.000-05:00

Here's the technorati chart for blog posts that have been tagged with the "Missional Church" tag over the last year. You can see the steady increase of blog entries for "missional church." What does this have to say about the resurgence in interest in living missionally?

technorati tags: missional church

Keller on Justice

2006-07-19T16:01:00.000-05:00

Reform & Resurge audio: Tim Keller on Doing Justice. This was the 3rd message he gave at the Reform and Resurge Conference. Message 1: Being the Church in Our Culture. Message 2: Preaching the Gospel.

Watch the "Doing Justice" vodcast here.

[ HT: Reformissionary ]

technorati tags: Tim Keller, missional, missional church, justice, shalom
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Edwards, Philippians

2006-07-18T17:27:00.000-05:00

Stephen J. Nichols, speaking about Jonathan Edwards and the book of Philippians with WorldMag, had this to say:

Some take this text (Paul's statement to the Philippians that "Our citizenship is in heaven") to mean that we should have very little to do with this world, with life on earth. Heaven is our home, this interpretation argues, and that is where our allegiances lie. Recently, however, some New Testament scholars have made a compelling case for thinking about this text differently. Citizens of Rome who lived in Philippi were not to pine away for Rome. Instead, they were to bring Rome to Philippi. We shouldn't pine away for heaven. Instead, as citizens of heaven living on earth we should bring heaven here, even if it is only in miniature. Remarkably, Edwards was preaching such an insight to his Northampton congregation three centuries ago.

[ read more... ]

[ HT: Justin Taylor ]
technorati tags: missional, missional church

Missional Church indicators

2006-07-18T10:43:00.000-05:00

Dale Zeimer, a member of the Gospel and Our Culture Netowork,compiled this list of indicators of a missional church. Although not exhaustive, it does give a fairly comprehensive look at some of the major threads of this movement:

The following statements of participating church leaders have been gleaned from a series of conversations and interviews. They indicate honest and candid reflection about what is occurring as they are cultivating their congregations to become missional churches. They are offered for encouragement to travelers on a similar path.

1. Efforts to become more faithful seem to start up and then fall, start up and then fall. Often, they are not consistent, met with resistance, hard to keep at center and as top priority, often crowded out by operational concerns for maintenance of present program.

2. Conversations are being held where people are beginning to realize that "Christendom is over and it isn't coming back."

3. There is ambivalence: People are sharing their interest in as well as their fear of change.

4. The conversation is beginning to move away from "bucks and butts" to "how can we become more faithful?"

5. There is movement among people from "giving answers" to "asking questions."

6. Existing groups are beginning to use their time together differently. Sometimes they're even choosing to meet longer or more frequently for study.

7. People are beginning to embrace the idea that we need to spend more time on issues that are of more importance than issues like "what doors need to be locked."

8. People are beginning to beg to talk about vision not in terms of programs, but of what God is doing in the world. Others are doing their best to try to understand that.

9. People are beginning to work through a lot of local church history and experience that seems not to have much to do with what we're facing now.

10. People are beginning to imagine about their church, "What if we were really chosen by God?"

11. It feels like we're putting some of the first few spades into the earth, turning the earth over just a little, little bit at a time.

12. People are meeting in small groups and find them to be very meaningful and important.

13. There are little bits here, little bits there.

14. People are sitting around the table talking about things they otherwise wouldn't talk about in church, they are in conversation and relationship with those they wouldn't be otherwise.

15. We're no longer talking about the "black hole of money" or the "black hole of the steeple."

16. New ideas are being entered into discussions and not swatted down immediately.

17. There are a number of people who are able to picture their church in their mind as a sent body of people rather than a place where certain things happen.

18. People are finding it difficult to pull away from the table because of the meaningful conversation and relationships that are taking place.

19. Church leaders admit that there is less resistance than they thought there would be to spending so much time.

20. It is being observed sometimes that those who have "always been there," and are dependable givers, are the biggest resistors to change.

21. Some people are willing to give time and thought to the question, "what's happening to the church today?"

22. Pastors are questioning all of their working assumptions, they are trying to distinguish between what is Christendom thinking and what is not.

23. When it comes to helping people move out of Christendom thinking it is like a redundant process–it tends to move two steps forward and three back.

24. People entrenched in Christendom ways of thinking about the church are leaving the church. And it's often a surprise about who those persons are. Not everyone is being converted.

25. Participants in the church are struggling with many other complex life issues and demands, and often make only sporadic time commitments.

26. Churches trying to become missional churches are looking for, finding, and discovering great collegiality with other churches looking for and struggling with some of the same things. They form a strong bond together, bonds that are not formed with other congregations.

27. An increased number of persons are willing to participate in Bible study, sometimes as much as 75% of the worshiping congregation.

28. There is ferment, the foundations are being shaken.

29. Old ghosts are being buried.

30. People are experiencing the benefits of praying together and meeting together over struggling alone.

31. Pastors are meeting together and are "pealing the layers off the onion," they are getting deeper into identifying their working assumptions and working theology, discovering what they really believe and how they practice that. They are beginning to share openly in a trusting group.

32. New behaviors are being tried in the congregation, such as dialoguing about core issues.

33. We are growing more comfortable with "kingdom" or "reign of God" language, that is, "bible" or "faith" language.

34. Older long-time members are becoming open to new experiences, but also report that they are scared. There is a lot of anxiety expressed about where this is going.

35. Pastors are preaching differently. They're asking for sample sermons on "missional church."

36. There are intentional efforts to expand the conversation and exploration, not just keep it within the confines of a few people.

37. Leadership teams seldom take votes and are becoming more comfortable with deciding most things by consensus; they're discovering "you can't find Robert's Rules of Order in the scriptures."

38. Church leaders are discovering at some point that they can't go back anymore to where they were.

39. Sometimes clergy are labeled by other clergy as having a certain way of thinking that is not acceptable.

40. It involves a lot of frustration at first, an unbelievable amount of frustration.

41. Church leaders are starting to have frank discussions about the church's past–what it was and what it wasn't.

42. Church leaders and members are moving beyond the blaming stage. (They are moving through stages of grief, a la Kubler-Ross when a death has occurred.)

43. Significant times are blocked out for conversation. They are structured, planned, and held consistently over a long period of time so that a pattern of expectation is slowly built up that we will talk together. After a while they reflect, "a year ago we weren't talking like this." They are able to talk about the changes that have occurred.

44. The church is identifying and prioritizing the strategic (most urgent, important, and significant) issues they are facing as a church.

45. Energy starts to snowball.

46. Persons are coming forward to contribute more money so that the process can continue.

47. A sense of great urgency occurred that preceded any change or even any movement or interest in change.

48. Bible study is going on everywhere. People are praying like they never prayed before–using what's familiar to their religious tradition (e.g. liturgy, free prayer, etc.)

49. Conversation, consistent conversation. The church is learning "you have to talk," "it takes talking and it takes time."

50. Great impatience and frustration precedes the change–people are "sick and tired" of those who are blocking and holding the church hostage.

51. Every meeting is started with at least a half hour of bible study and prayer. Nothing is done without it anymore.

52. A church does a 180 degree turnaround on willingness to be in meetings and acceptance of how much time it takes to be together.

53. People discover with thanks the difference they experience by engaging around the Bible as compared to engaging around the boiler.

54. "Not rushing to solutions"–people have a new appreciation of knowing the difference between operational band-aid applications and thinking strategically, with transformation in mind.

55. Sometimes there is six months to a year of work before an "aha" occurs. And there is indication that when the light turns on, it never goes off again.

56. There is now opportunity for conversations where deepest yearnings of the heart for the church can be expressed.

57. Churches that are or are becoming missional have leadership (the pastor) who gets it and is on board. Where the pastor doesn't get it, any efforts seem to get sabbatoged.

58. On our Mission Church Team we often do 90% study even while doing our business, wrestling with what we are to be about.

59. My preaching has been difficult. What I used to do, I can't do now. So much had been aimed at individualism, individual piety.

60. We're involved in lots of theological reading and study–it's now an ongoing thing in this congregation.

61. Some of the main obstacles have been time, lack of focus, and not being real organized about structuring time for conversation.

62. A major learning for us has been how much time actually is involved in discerning God's call as a congregation.

63. My mantra is this, "We're still learning the ropes." We're learning how to discern God's call. My other mantra is this: "We're learning how to sail this thing. And we're going to get to practice for the rest of our lives."

64. Definitely our church has more of a servant attitude. There's a change in perception about what we're after as a church.

65. Another outcome has been our insistence on consensus, listening to alternative voices and minority voices, not using power plays. We are more patient, we look for further wisdom.

66. Now we are doing something about learning to swim in these new waters that the world has cast us into.

technorati tags: missional church, missional, emerging church
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Sally Marie Stewart

2006-07-04T14:06:00.000-05:00

Sally Marie Stewart was born on Sunday, July 2 around 11:30am. We named her after Kimberly's mom who just passed away last month.

6lbs. 12oz.
19 inches long

She is very healthy and we now have her at home. Wesley Grant loves the new "bayyy-beeee" and has already given her lots of hugs and kisses.

Thanks for all the prayers and support!

oh baby...

2006-07-01T00:21:00.000-05:00

Sunday morning - 6am. That's when we will be at the hospital, and Kimberly will be induced. Lord willing, we'll have a healthy baby girl that afternoon or evening. Here we go!

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Missional Church article

2006-06-25T21:35:00.000-05:00

Andrew McMahan recently gave me a heads up to an article at Urbana.org that gives a pretty good overview of the "missional church" conversation. The article sites some great characteristics of missional churches:

Minfred Minatrea studied a number of missional churches. He defined missional churches as "Reproducing communities of authentic disciples, being equipped as missionaries sent by God, to live and proclaim his kingdom in their world." He noted nine practices that they have in common (with my explanatory phrases in parentheses):

1. Having a high threshold for membership
(high expectations for believers)

2. Being real, not real religious
(being transparent, authentic, with one foot in "the world.")

3. Teaching to obey rather than to know
(a practical faith)

4. Rewriting worship every week
(Creative, participatory Sunday morning services)

5. Living apostolically
(each believer as a missionary)

6. Expecting to change the world
(aggressively engaged in transforming communities)

7. Ordering actions according to purpose.
(Ruthless aligning of resources with mission)

8. Measuring growth by capacity to release rather than retain.
(Not megachurches but multiplying churches)

9. Placing kingdom concerns first
(in contrast to denomination first. Thus, cooperation with other churches)

[ read more... ]

Those are some great distinctives or, dare I say it, core values... practices that express the essence of what any body of believers with a desire to influence their culture must be about. If I were planting a church in America, this is where I would start. Are there any you would add? subtract? why?

technorati tags: missional church, missional, church planting
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Friday Foto

2006-06-23T09:02:00.000-05:00

This is a cathedral in Zaragoza, Spain called La Seo. I've been in and through dozens of cathedrals, and this one is by far the most breathtaking.

Keller on city ministry

2006-06-22T10:42:00.000-05:00

Tim Keller has a new article out in The Movement on ministry in the new global culture of major city-centers. It's classic Keller, and worth the read for gems like this:

"Some conservative Christians think of the story of salvation like this: Fall, Redemption, Heaven. In this narrative, only saved people have anything of value (people in the world are simply blind and bad), and the purpose of redemption is escape from this world. But if the story of salvation is Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration, then things look different. Non-Christians, created in the image of God, have much wisdom and greatness within them, even though the image is defaced and fallen. Moreover, the purpose of redemption is not to escape the world but to renew it." (italics mine)

Think about that. Redemption is not just for individuals, it is also for creation, for systems, for cultures. It is not just about securing your personal fire insurance plan, it is also about securing neighborhoods, and communities, and families. It's about renewal, not escape.

[ HT - Steve McCoy ]

technorati tags: missional+church, missional, cities, church+planting, justice, social+renewal

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City ministry and global trends

2006-06-19T09:17:00.000-05:00

Here's a set of links to some great articles on urban and global trends:

BBC NEWS | In Depth | Urbanization

Want to trace the past and future expansion of the world's biggest cities? Go here.

Some especially good articles:

Are Cities Growing Too Fast?
Report Reveals Global Slum Crisis
Eco-designs on Future Cities

technorati tags: city ministry, urban trends, global trends, urbanization, globalization, missional church

Attention all missional leaders

2006-06-16T20:25:00.000-05:00

From Missiology.org comes this humbling quote:

"As mission leaders, we have failed to foresee both the immensity of urban growth and the fact that most of the urban growth would be in squatter areas. The opportunity to save the cites from many traumas associated with this development, as well as the opportunity to establish a church in every squatter area that has formed, have been lost almost entirely"-- (Viv Grigg, Cry of the Urban Poor(Monrovia, CA: MARC, 1992, 14).

technorati tags: missional, missional church, urban poor, poverty, mission, leadership, urban

awww yeah...

2006-06-14T18:05:00.001-05:00

Wes is blogging. If you think I won't be checking it every day, you're wrong.

Sin and Shalom in the inner-city

2006-06-10T11:19:00.000-05:00

Living in the inner-city of Memphis I've come to grow accustomed, almost numb, to the amount of violence, strife, sin and problems associated with our neighborhood. But this came out of nowhere. It was not even remotely anticipated.

My next door neighbor was recently arrested for raping 2 teenagers. The 2 girls live in a neighborhood not far from the suburban church where I work.

It's been a hard week for a lot of people. It came as a complete shock to all of us.

Not to mention all of the lives that have been shattered. The lives of the girls. The lives of those who know and love them. The lives of those around the accused rapist... his wife, his neighbors, his family, his friends. It's a sad, sad story all around.

And nobody wins. Nobody.

Cornelius Plantinga, Jr, professor of theology at Calvin Theological Seminary, has written an important article about Sin. He argues that sin destroys... it upsets... it disturbs... it mangles the way things should be, the way things ought to be. He then goes on to talk about this 'ought to be', this shalom, in this way:

The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight is, of course, what the Hebrew prophets call shalom. We call it peace, but it means far more than just peace of mind or cease-fire between enemies. In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight, in which natural needs are satisfied, natural gifts fruitfully employed - the whole process inspiring joyful wonder as the creator and savior of all opens doors and speaks welcome. Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be. ("Not the Way It's S'pposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin" in Theology Today, vol 50, No 2 - Jul 1993:182)

I'm thinking a lot about what Shalom looks like in this context. So I will end with these questions:

What does it look like for this community to flourish? For wholeness to be a norm and not the exception? How can we encourage a web, a tapestry, of fulfillment and delight in a community that seems to full of such blight? How can we, by God's grace, restore what has been broken and destroyed?

technorati tags: shalom, inner-city, justice, missional, missional church

More mission from MereMission

2006-06-05T19:37:00.000-05:00

From the wonderful folks at MereMission comes this quote from Leslie Newbigin:

"The concern of those who see mission primarily in terms of action for God’s justice is embodied mainly in programs carried on at a supracongregational level by boards and committees, whether denominational or ecumenical. The concern of those who see mission primarily in terms of personal conversion is expressed mainly at the level of congregational life. The effect of this is that each is robbled of its character by its separation from the other. Christian programs for justice and compassion are severed from their proper roots in the liturgical and sacramental life of the congregation, and so lose their character as signs of the presence of Christ and risk becoming mere crusades fueled by a moralism that can become self-righteous. And the life of the worshipping congregation, severed from its proper expression in compassionate service to the secular community around it, risks becoming a self-centered existence serving only the needs and desires of its members."

technorati tags [ missional church, Newbigin, social justice ]

thankful

2006-05-28T18:15:00.000-05:00

Kimberly, my wife, and I are so thankful for all the prayers and support we have received during this time. Kimberly is blogging about the passing of her mom, and the strong testimony of God's faithfulness that was displayed through her difficult battle with MS and cancer. Thanks so much for your concern, emails, phone calls, cards, letters and messages throughout the last couple of weeks.

sad news

2006-05-19T16:47:00.000-05:00

My wife (Kimberly's) mom passed away yesterday. We're both out of town and have very limited access to email and internet. We would appreciate your prayers at this time...

From Chaos to Chorus

2006-05-09T11:15:00.000-05:00

Below is a video of a Stomp piece that I wrote a few years ago. The performance is by my friends at Newsong Church, an emerging, cutting-edge church with 3 campuses in the L.A. area and 1 campus in Bangkok. They are a talented group of dancers and musicians that I had the priviledge of working with last year. The title of the piece is "From Chaos to Chorus: How God takes our junk and makes it into music". It's in a simple A:B format that centers around a Christ-figure who unifies the chaos that has led to disintegration, and then leads them into making music with the very things that caused their chaos - their junk.

technorati tags: emerging church, music, STOMP, percussion, Newsong Church

.:: exagorazo ::.

Justice Friday

Is Twitter narcissitic? A response...

Q&A (via Twitter) about Church Planting

Top 6 Reasons I haven't blogged in 6 months

Missional Blog-fest

insights from redeemer's church planting center

headed to Redeemer's Church Planting Center this week

austin city-wide church planter assessment

a conversation on barriers to a movement in the U.S. - part 1

Praying for the shalom of our neighborhood

Building a Movement of Missional Communities - part 5

Building a Movement of Missional Communities - part 4

Building a Movement of Missional Communities - part 3

Building a Movement of Missional Communities - part 2

Redemption and Restoration - Block Party style!

simple & organic

Building a Movement of Missional Communities - part 1

Book Review: A Theology As Big As The City by Ray Bakke

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Back from seminary at Fuller

Live blogging from MAGL in Pasadena - Friday, Week 1

Live blogging from MAGL in Pasadena - Friday, Week 1

Live blogging from MAGL in Pasadena - pt. 4

Live blogging from MAGL in Pasadena - pt. 3

Live blogging from MAGL in Pasadena - 2

Live blogging from MAGL in Pasadena

Some Thoughts on a Biblical Theology of Mission - Part 3

Some Thoughts on a Biblical Theology of Mission - Part 2

Some Thoughts on a Biblical Theology of Mission - Part 1

Top 25 Multiplying Churches

A small marker on the road of blogging

Book Review: Ministering Cross-Culturally - Lingenfelter & Mayers

Book Review: Incarnational Ministry - Hiebert & Meneses

Book Review: The Open Secret - Lesslie Newbigin

Book Review: God's Missionary People - Charles Van Engen

Heart Idols

Idol: COMFORT (Privacy, lack of stress, freedom)

Idol: APPROVAL (Affirmation, love, relationship)

Idol: CONTROL (Self-discipline, certainty, standards)

Idol: POWER (Success, winning, influence)

Why community and mission aren't easy - pt. 5

Why community and mission aren't easy - pt. 4

Why community and mission aren't easy - pt. 3

Victor Choudhrie blogging

Shift Happens

Easy way to do justice globally

Why community and mission aren't easy - pt. 2

Why community and mission aren't easy

Bob Roberts article in CT

What must we learn and unlearn to be agents of God's mission in the world?

The Missional Church - insights from Keller

Lessons from my mentors

worldview and missional church

Lessons from a 2-year-old

Book Review: Cultivating a Life for God - Neil Cole

reading and community

a good laugh...

What kind of mentor are you?

Matt Carter blog

Want to be a good ministry coach?

blog redesign