For more than 10 years I’ve had a weekly ritual before practically every teaching opportunity. I’ll put my headphones (now airpods) on and I’ll listen to the Jars of Clay classic “Worlds Apart”. My prayer, as the words envelop my thoughts, always centers on allowing God to really take my world apart where it concerns … More Unraveled
Venturing into the practical side of things, I’d like to suggest that a significant obstacle to moving the church out of the building is one of posture. My training in the pastoral arts leaned heavily on creating an illusion of all knowing. Like the wizard behind the curtain, we were expected to have every answer … More reclaiming the “verbness” of church pt. 2
As I sat down to put some recent thoughts to screen, ironically, I stumbled on a new Barna report showing that more than half of US church goers have never heard of the “Great Commission”. Worse, in my opinion was that “Additionally, even when presented with a list of passages, 37 percent don’t recognize which … More reclaiming the “verb-ness” of the church (pt 1)
“Missional living is the adoption of the posture, thinking, behaviors, and practices of a missionary in order to engage others with the gospel message.” So says Wikipedia. It may not impress scholars, but I’m going with this definition because, in all honesty, Wikipedia is the cultural low investment source and the baseline of collective … More “Mission”-al in the neighborhood part 1
In 34 years of marriage, my wife and I have just, in recent months, begun to get a handle on syncing our calendars. Back in the day, there used to generally be one flip chart type calendar placed somewhere strategically in our house where, ideally, we would each write out the important rhythms of our … More calendar sync
At some point, I guess, the concept of neighborhood was formed around some confines of place that included homes, businesses, third place locales, churches, etc. Our neighbors were defined as those people who lived, worked, and served in one of those readily identifiable places. In other words, at least in my own mind, neighborhood, whether … More lesson from neighbors
Most of my adult life has been spent pastoring congregations, being influenced by and caught up in the idea of “building up the church”. Most easily translated and understood as, how can we get more people to take advantage of the religious goods and services that we are desiring to provide. It is a noble … More entering in or calling out
